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wreywrites · 6 months

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Tiger Shark

Part 7: The Sail

Chapter 47

The hovercraft drops us at the far end of Victor’s Village. As I suspected after going to Twelve with Katniss, the houses are spotless, untouched, pristine. As the hovercraft lifts off, on its way to take Johanna back to Seven, I hear a scream.

“Annie!”

I turn around. Jade is sprinting down the middle of the street. I try to shout her name back, but any recognizable sound is replaced by a choked sob as I run toward her.

We crash into each other, a tangle of long hair and tears.

“I thought you were dead!” I sob. “I thought you were all dead!”

“It takes more than a few Capitol bombs to kill us.”

We stand, embracing, in silence, while I try to muster up the courage to ask. Finally: “Dad?”

“He’s not going to be fishing any time soon, but he’s alright.”

I laugh in relief. “Coral?”

“Just fine. We’ll invite her for supper.” She smiles and turns to Finnick. “Odair.”

“Jade.”

“See you married my best friend without asking if I was okay with that.”

“In my defense-”

Jade laughs. “I’m kidding!” She wraps an arm around me and starts back down the street toward my house. “We saw the wedding, me and your dad. It was on TV four or five times. You looked so happy. And we were so happy for you.” Then, still grinning, she turns to look at Cassia, carrying a suitcase on Finnick’s other side. “And who are you?” she asks, tone friendly.

“Cassia.”

“Cassia Vickers,” I say. “She sent me the water. And she helped me get through all those trips to the Capitol. She’s going to live with us.”

Jade nods. “Nice to meet you, Cassia. I’m Jade.”

And just like that, we are in front of my house.

They let me go inside first. My house hasn’t changed. There are shoes on the horrible, lumpy mat in the hall—my first attempt at weaving that I’m so glad I kept—and spears in the umbrella stand, and my big floppy sunhat hanging on a hook next to my flippers. I walk down the hallway, set my bag on the kitchen table. It’s everything from Thirteen. All of Finnick’s stuff and all of mine, and seventy-four files of crossed-off names.

I turn around and there he is. I let out some sort of sound and run to the couch, drop to my knees next to it, throw my arms around him.

“Hey little shark,” Dad says, wrapping me in a hug.

I sob into his shoulder.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Jade makes supper. She’s become quite the cook, but then again, she’s had to. Dad is still alive, and in quite good spirits, but he couldn’t sit by when the fighting started, especially since, I find out now, he was the one who organized the district-wide fishing strikes. Turns out, he’s been a rebel from the start. When the Capitol tried to beat Four back into submission, one of his legs got blown off by a grenade. But the doctors saved him, and that’s all that matters. Jade’s been living in the house with him since the day we broke out of the arena, when the Capitol bombed the docks. She tried to go home, but her parents lived right off the docks. There was nothing left but ashes and a pair of bodies. So she and my dad took care of each other. I guess they didn’t have much hope left for any of us until Thirteen aired Katniss’s first propo.

“Even then, we doubted you were still alive until they started playing those propos about the other tributes and we heard you talking. And then one afternoon we were watching for the war coverage and they showed you getting married in Thirteen. It was the happiest day of my life,” Dad squeezes my hand. “You looked so happy.”

I smile. “I wish you could have been there.”

“We were with you in spirit,” Jade says, “Though I wish I could’ve had a dance with you.”

Finnick grins. “I think we can still make that happen.”

Cassia, shoveling shrimp and rice into her mouth, pauses long enough to say, “We have to. I have all that money to pay for a big party.”

So we do.

We call everyone, invite them back to Four for the wedding we wanted, the party Plutarch nearly committed treason for. Everyone agrees to be there. Alvan says he will bring our horses. Cashmere says she can’t wait to have two less horses. Gloss and the Leegs promise to guard the cake we are shipping in from the Capitol with their lives.

The only person we can’t get is Katniss. We call the number her mother gave us when she moved to Four to help run the hospital, but the line rings and rings and rings and never is answered. I don’t know why—she was found innocent, and nobody misses Coin. But at the same time I do know why—Prim is dead, and her mother can’t bring herself to go back to Twelve. Katniss is alone with the ghosts, and she is choosing to stay that way.

Even Haymitch comes, tagging along with Hazelle, Rory, Vick, and Posy. Posy shrieks with joy when she sees us, and is even more excited when Finnick hands her an oyster that he bought this morning.

“It’s your first tooth oyster,” he says with a grin, picking her up and setting her on his hip. “We’ll pop it open tonight and see what you get.”

We dance and eat and talk and drink and laugh all night. Just like in Thirteen, kids are asleep on the floor while parents dance and talk around them. People stare at us, all of us, the victors from seven different districts, surviving and living and thriving. Gale dances with Jade, Cassia and the Hawthornes and Cecelia’s kids dodge laughing between tables, my father drinks Leeg 2 under the table while Gloss cheers him on, Alvan is surrounded by a group of children who take turns talking to him just to hear him talk back to them in their own voices, Coral and Cashmere laugh at Mark’s terrible puns while Cecelia tells them to stop encouraging him even as she laughs too.

Plutarch doesn’t say who found them or where, but he arrives at the wedding with the ten crowns of the attending victors. He doesn’t force them on us or make us keep them, but by the end of the night they have all found their way back to their owners.

I wish I could throw mine away. Toss it into the ocean and never think of it again. But I remember the night of the Quarter Quell interviews, standing in front of the mirror with Finnick.

We are victors.

They took so much, but they cannot take that. No one can.

So we keep the crowns.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Finnick’s house by the Traps is half-built and we are still living in his house in Victor’s Village when the baby comes.

Katniss’s mother, who has been living with us for a couple of weeks now, just in case, declares him the healthiest baby she has ever seen, which she probably says about every baby, but it doesn’t matter.

We name him Beck.

Finnick wanted to name one of the horses Beck, which was how I finally told him.

“I think we should take a page out of Johanna’s book. Beck and Mags.”

“Honey, I know we talked about baby names exactly once and all we decided was that we should wait until after the rebellion to have that conversation, but we need to circle back around to that. I don’t think we should use those names on the horses.”

“Why? Wait! Are you-?”

So we named the horses Ahab and Ariel, and they never have to work a day in their lives.

Jade and Gale come back from Two the next weekend, bearing many gifts for Little Beck. Gale, living proof that people love different people differently, arrives with a teddy bear, the softest blanket I have ever felt, a very cute and very tiny hat, and a question for my dad.

The next spring, we have another wedding in Four. The old crew stays in our finished house by the Traps, with its even dozen bedrooms and only one (very large) kitchen, and we stay up late into the night talking and remembering and laughing.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

We get together every year for New Year’s, just like Finnick promised. The house is full of laughing kids and laughing adults. Dad brings chocolate rolls. Finnick gets out the lobsters we caught months ago and put in the freezer. Cecelia and Mark give everyone their traditional New Year’s gift of a new sweater. Johanna shows up with two gallons of liquor.

We are setting the table when the front door opens and Little Beck shouts, “Aunt Jade! Uncle Gale!”

Coral sweeps them in.

“Thought you were in Twelve?” Peeta laughs, sliding two extra chairs around the table.

“We were,” Jade shrugs, “But Gale said he couldn’t take it anymore so we left a couple days early to stop by and see everyone before we go home.”

Katniss raises an eyebrow at Gale. “Couldn’t take what? Happy and well-fed coal miners?”

“Katniss, he’s living with my mom,” Gale moans, sinking into a chair.

“Who?” Katniss frowns.

“H-” Gale starts. It looks painful. “Hha- Huhhh-”

Jade puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright, starfish, you can do it.”

“Ha-hahhhh…” Gale either mimes throwing up or he actually dry-heaves.

“Haymitch!” Jade squeaks. “It’s Haymitch!”

Peeta bursts into laughter.

“It’s not funny! I thought they were just friends after everything, but we got there for Christmas and they’re living together! Posy loves him!”

“Posy loves everyone,” I say with a grin, passing him a mug of coffee.

“She jumped right in his lap after supper.”

Cashmere laughs. “She did that to Finnick too. It’s not new.”

Finnick turns to me, a slight look of panic on his face. “Do you think we should have adopted Posy too? Was she trying to tell us something?”

Cassia laughs. “You two already have a houseful, I don’t think you needed to take Posy away from her brothers.”

“Guys, it’s still not funny!”

Jade kisses the top of Gale’s head. “I think it’s funny to everyone but you. You’d think it was hilarious if it was Katniss’s mom instead of yours.”

Katniss nearly drops the stack of plates she’s carrying. “That’s a horrible thought.”

Gale chuckles. “Yeah, okay, that would be funny.”

“Don’t worry,” I grin, “if your mom managed to live with my dad for two years without them getting together, we should be in the clear.”

“So, Gale, I want to circle back to Haymitch living with your mom, but… starfish?” Johanna cackles.

“Do not-!” Gale starts.

Jade cackles as well. “I took him out on Finnick’s boat one day and he said he knew how to swim, but then he went in and really didn’t-”

“I didn’t know swimming in the ocean was so different-”

“So he started floundering around and totally panicking and Finnick jumped in to help him-”

Finnick and I are laughing now too. I remember this day. Gale just about managed to take Finnick down with him in his best attempt at drowning.

Jade goes on. “And I thought he was going to drown Finnick, and I thought ‘This is not how Odair He Is dies!’ so I just yelled, ‘Starfish! Gale, starfish!’ And thankfully he knew what I meant and he starfished and floated until Finnick got him.”

“Then I got him back on the boat and put a lifejacket on him. So it was just Gale and Little Beck in lifejackets while the rest of us swam like normal adult people.”

“We got a really cute picture of it too,” I grin. “It’s in Beck’s room. He loves Uncle Gale.”

****

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#wrey writes #the hunger games #thg: tiger shark #annie cresta #finnick odair #mentions of canon typical violence #but mostly fluff and warm fuzzies

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wreywrites · 6 months

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Tiger Shark

Part 7: The Sail

Chapter 46

We leave Cassia with the Leegs. There’s a limited number of people we trust to keep an eye on her when so many rebels would hear her name and want her punished for her father’s investment in the Hunger Games, and most of our trusted friends will be in this meeting. So she stays with the Leegs, playing cards in our room.

Johanna walks to the meeting with us. None of us say it, but I know we are all hoping that there are more survivors out there than just the ones living in the mansion. We’re victors, after all. If nothing else, we know how to survive. But then we walk into the room and there are thirteen chairs around the table.

Coin is already seated in one of them, a small stack of loose papers in front of her.

We sit across from her, as far away as possible, Finnick, then me, then Johanna. Cecelia comes in next and sits by Johanna, then Gloss, Cashmere, and Alvan by Finnick. Peeta comes in with Beetee, then Enobaria by herself. How she is still alive, I have no idea. Finally, Katniss and Haymitch arrive, and all the chairs are full.

Is this really it? I remember a funeral full of victors, fifty-six of us, mourning Megary. And now there are twelve of us, and we all have the same broken look in our eyes. Even Enobaria looks different than I remember her. I still think she’d be willing to rip someone’s throat out with her teeth, but she looks… tired.

Coin steeples her fingers in front of her. “I have asked you all here because you are the remaining victors. You are uniquely qualified to make the decision that lies before us today.”

I don’t like the sound of this. I’m tired of being special just because I knew how to swim.

Apparently, two options face us today. Some of the rebels want to execute those involved with the Hunger Games: Gamemakers, financial supporters, style teams, escorts, the scientists who designed the mutts, the Capitol’s most prominent citizens, all of them. Some of the rebels want leniency. Snow has been removed from power. The districts have won. The next president can outlaw the Hunger Games and we can be done. Compromise, however, seems unlikely.

Then Coin presents her plan for justice: the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games, featuring the children of the Capitol’s most prominent citizens and highest government officials. “I believe this is an acceptable compromise, delivering justice to the proponents of the Hunger Games, while avoiding the barbaric executions of all involved.”

She pauses while we digest this.

“Your individual votes will be kept confidential, of course, though it will be announced that the victors made this decision.” Coin shuffles the sheets of paper in front of her.

The old victors stiffen. I’ve never been in a meeting with Snow, but from the reaction everyone else but Katniss and Peeta has, this is a familiar power move.

Coin leans back in her chair. “As there are an even number of victors, my vote, as interim president, will be the tiebreaker. And I must vote for these Games.”

“No!” Peeta practically yelps.

All I can see is Cassia Vickers standing in the arena.

Johanna is trying hard to look impassive. “I vote yes.”

“I vote no with Peeta.” I stare around at everyone else. “How can you say this is not barbaric? We’re no better than the Capitol if we agree to this!”

“No,” Finnick says firmly. “No more Games.”

Coin is giving Finnick and me something just beyond the neutral look of displeasure.

“Give them a taste of their own medicine,” Enobaria says. “Yes.”

From the look in Johanna’s eyes, having Enobaria agree with her almost makes her change her vote.

“No,” Cecelia says. “I’m the only person here with kids, and let me tell you all, you cannot imagine how horrible it is to think they might someday face the arena. I would never do that to anyone. Not even the Gamemakers.”

Coin picks up the stack of papers, taps one edge on the table, straightening them.

Alvan’s hands, resting on the edge of the table, are shaking. Finnick is breathing too fast.

“Yes.” Gloss sounds defeated.

Cashmere echoes him, her whispered “Yes” barely audible.

“No. We’re better than the Capitol,” Beetee says. “We rebelled and we won and now we have to prove that we are the better choice. Another Hunger Games will not do that.”

Alvan nods, hands still shaking, staring through the table. “We- we gotta be better’n they were. No.”

We are all looking at Katniss and Haymitch.

Katniss volunteered for her sister. Katniss just watched her sister die. Katniss wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

“Yes. For Prim.”

My hands ball into fists.

“I’m with the Mockingjay.”

I want to scream. Or maybe strangle Haymitch.

I do neither as Coin nods once and says, “Good. It’s decided. It will be announced this afternoon after the execution of Coriolanus Snow.” She stands and leaves the room, leaving the rest of us in shocked silence.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Cassia is playing tag with Tilly, Edie, and Bax.

“What do we do now?” Finnick has his head in his hands. “Do we tell her? Do we pretend we didn’t know? Do we hope for the best? Maybe she won’t get drawn?”

I bite back a bitter laugh. “Titus Vickers? They’ll draw her. You and I both know the reaping was easy to rig before and you can be sure they’ll rig this one. Snow’s granddaughter, Caesar Flickerman’s youngest, Cassia, they’ll draw them all. Honestly, I think Plutarch’s lucky he doesn’t have any kids.”

“What if we left?”

“What, walk back to Four?”

“No, just left the mansion. We could find a place to keep low until… until it’s done.”

Before we can debate the merits of this plan, Cressida and the Leegs arrive. Cressida to inform us that Coin wants us in our rebel uniforms for the execution and that they have been returned to our room, and the Leegs to stay with Mark and the kids, since they are wanted at the ceremony, but not to stand by the victors. Cassia will go with them, with their solemn oath they'll keep her safe.

Once dressed, we join the others and take a hovercraft to the City Center at the end of Victor’s Way. They give us places of honor in the front row as the crowds fill in, down the length of the street. I clutch Finnick’s hand.

Katniss walks out on the ground level, only ten yards away from where Snow is tied to a post. He is smiling.

I force myself to watch. This is the man who has taken so much from me. I will watch him die.

Katniss readies the arrow, takes careful aim, and shoots Coin.

****

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wreywrites · 6 months

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Tiger Shark

Part 7: The Sail

Chapter 45

Gloss and Finnick and I become so unhinged when they try to move Alvan and Cashmere to the hospital that they finally move the hospital to the mansion. Or at least the parts that Alvan and Cashmere need.

Now Gloss talks like he’ll never run out of words. Cashmere says almost nothing. Alvan sleeps a lot, but when he’s awake he likes to talk. He tells us he and Cashmere must have confused the lizard mutts, because they hesitated just long enough for us to climb and for them to run. He assumes, and Finnick confirms, that Katniss detonated the Holo. That must have taken out most of the mutts, because only a handful followed him and Cashmere after that, and they managed to take care of them. They got back to the surface as quickly as they could, but had no idea where they were. The apartment was unoccupied, so they just stayed there, nursing their wounds and watching TV hoping for updates. They saw the parachute bombs go off on live TV, and it was Cashmere who noticed us in the background of one shot, so they knew at least Finnick and I were alive and hoped others were too. They waited for the official surrender to be announced, then started the dangerous trek to the City Center, keeping their heads down and faces hidden.

There is still no word on Cassia, though Plutarch assures us that evening over supper after he has given a glowing report on Katniss and Peeta’s recovery that he and his people are doing all they can. I struggle to believe this, but I can think of no one else who could lead the search for her, and I very much don’t want to involve Coin.

Where I see a scared little girl, Coin will see a name to add to the updated lists she is no doubt compiling for all of us. Finnick Odair: Annie Cresta, Cassia Vickers.

Or would she write Annie Odair? I really do need to find out how the name thing is going to work. Are we only legally married in Thirteen? These are all questions for later. Then again, they are taking my mind off Cassia and giving me something else, something smaller, something more solvable, to worry about.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Finnick and I have been living in Snow’s mansion for ten days when we find one last hallway we haven’t explored yet. It starts in the basement and angles out away from the mansion and toward the gardens. After a while, we notice it is sloping up, and soon we are walking along a ground-level hallway with enormous windows looking out into the snow-covered, perfectly-manicured lawns.

Near the end, I pause at one of the windows to admire the view. Finnick strolls onward, reaches the door at the end, pushes it open. I hear him gasp, then he bolts through the door.

“Annie!” he calls. “Annie, you’ll never believe what I found!”

I hurry after him and through the door.

The first thing I notice is the warmth, then the rustling like wind through tall grass, then the three other people staring at me. Then a gentle whinny draws my eyes to the side of the room. A coal-black horse is looking over the half-door of its stall at me. I reach up, stroke its soft nose, look down both walls of the stable. Twenty-three more horses poke their heads out.

Finnick is standing in front of an iron gray horse, rubbing its forehead.

I am eighteen again, and Finnick is feeding our horses sugar cubes as he and Gloss laugh at Mako and I dressed as merpeople.

I drift to the second gray horse. It is focused on Finnick. Of course it is. It is looking for sugar cubes. I pet its neck. “Here we are again, huh? After all these years.”

The horse nickers and bumps its head against me.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Alvan rubs the brown horse’s neck. “Hey there, girlie. Easy.”

She nickers.

“Yeah, pretty girl.”

The three people are here again. They are the official caretakers of the chariot horses, who have carried on their duties through it all. Finnick asked Paylor about the horses last night at supper. She said the grooms are on her payroll now, until she can figure out what to do with the horses. They just aren’t a priority at the moment, and they’re safe and cared for where they are. She said we are welcome to spend all the time in the stable we want. It’s peaceful and warm and the horses are a comforting presence to us all.

Alvan has been trying to decide which one to ride first. He has already promised Cecelia’s kids he will teach them to ride, and I have been trying not to look too excited by the prospect as well. Why not learn to ride a horse?

“How ’bout you, big fella?” Alvan pats another brown horse, this one with darker legs, mane, and tail. He says it’s a bay horse. He knows a lot about horses. He tells us all about them as he walks from stall to stall, greeting each horse like it’s an old friend who is simultaneously a small child.

“Such handsome socks ya got there, fella,” he greets a copper horse, a chestnut. Alvan speaks to us, but moves around the horse, petting him and checking him over. “Socks are white legs, ’bout up to the knees or so. Some people call real tall ones stockings, but I call ’em all socks. This fella’s got all four up to his knees. Real looker, ’n’ I think he knows it.”

The horse tosses his head.

“Yeah, you’re hot stuff. Not hoppin’ on you first.”

Eventually, he settles on a big bay with four white socks halfway to its knees.

“That’s one of mine,” Johanna says suddenly, a distant look in her eyes. She tilts her head, looking at the horse like it’s a long-lost friend. “One of Seven’s.”

“He’s a handsome one. Level head on his shoulders, calm eyes. Finnick, stop that, you’re spoilin’ ’em.” Alvan frowns at Finnick, who is slipping one of our horses a sugar cube.

“I want them to keep liking me,” Finnick defends himself, though he has the sense to sound at least a little ashamed.

“They will,” Alvan says patiently, leading the chosen horse from his stall. “But they’re also gonna get fat.” He saddles the horse. “Hope I don’t get bucked off. That’d be embarrassin’.”

We follow him out the big stable doors and into the gardens. The horse noses at the snow.

“Well, what’ll we call ya?” Alvan rubs the horse’s neck, then looks at Johanna. “He’s your horse.”

Johanna frowns, thinking. “Sully.”

“Sully it is.” Alvan grins at us. “Y’all gonna catch me ’f I get thrown?”

“Uhh…” Gloss raises a nervous eyebrow.

“I’m kiddin’ ya. Don’t try it if he does toss me. I know how to get bucked off.” He springs onto Sully, settles into the saddle like he was born for this, clucks to the horse.

It is beautiful to watch. I wonder if that’s what it looks like when other people watch me swimming. Do they see me so at home then that to see me doing anything else would seem strange and gawky and unnatural? Because that is what Alvan looks like on horseback. Fluid and strong and comfortable and confident and happy.

He laughs, gives the horse a gentle kick, rocks along with the movement. He leans over the horse’s shoulders, posture shifting. “Giddap!”

Sully tosses his head and races forward, flying through the snow.

Alvan whoops as the pair of them disappear around a hedge.

“He’s, uh… He’s going to try to take them all home, isn’t he?” Cecelia asks.

“It’s my greatest fear,” Cashmere says, staring after Alvan.

“Uhh…?” Gloss says again, turning to look at Cashmere.

In response, she shrugs.

Finnick leans toward me. “I want to keep ours.”

“Finnick.” I roll my eyes and laugh.

“What?”

“Where are we going to keep a pair of horses?”

He opens his mouth, but Cressida comes running through the garden from the mansion’s office wing.

“Finnick! Annie! Plutarch is-” She yelps and skitters out of the way as Sully streaks out from between two hedges right in front of her, Alvan still cackling with glee on his back. Cressida shakes herself and straightens up. “Plutarch wants to see you! He says he has news!”

We leave the others watching Alvan and Sully race around the gardens and follow Cressida back inside and all the way to one of the smaller conference rooms.

She opens the door and gestures us in. Plutarch is there, and the Leegs, and Coin, and Cassia Vickers.

I clap my hands over my mouth, slumping in relief.

“Cassia!” Finnick starts toward her, then stops and looks at Plutarch, then at Coin. “Cassia, where were you?”

“Home.” She is clutching a large envelope to her chest and looking nervously at Coin. I wonder how long Coin was in here with her before we got here. Surely Plutarch would have stayed with her the whole time? Cassia goes on. “A medic took me to a hospital, and once they saw I was okay, they just… sent me out.” A distant look crosses her face. “So I went home. It took a long time to get there, with everything going on in the streets. And I got this for you.” She starts to stretch the envelope toward us.

Coin makes the tiniest of movements and Cassia recoils, jerking the envelope back toward her chest.

“Madam President,” Plutarch says calmly, trying to be conciliatory, but clearly his sympathies are with Cassia Vickers, a twelve-year-old he has known since her birth, from the way he tells it. “That envelope and its contents are the private property of Titus Vickers-”

“A dead man,” Coin says, almost dismissively.

“-And his heir or heirs,” Plutarch continues, as if she hadn’t said anything. “It belongs to Cassia, and she has a right to show it only to people of her choosing.”

“It hasn’t been screened, Plutarch,” Coin says, her voice hard. “It could contain poison, or a secret message of sabotage, or a bomb.”

Cassia doesn’t look at Coin as she says, with a commendable amount of strength and defiance, “It’s his will.”

“Then it is government property.” Coin gestures at Leeg 1.

Leeg 1 shakes her head.

Coin frowns at Leeg 2.

Leeg 2 shakes her head.

I walk to Cassia before anything more can happen. Kneeling in front of her, trying to ignore the tension in the room, I say, “Are you alright?”

She nods. “A little hungry, but Mr. Heavensbee says I can eat as soon as we’re done.” Then she passes the envelope to me. “I read it. I don’t know what all of it means, but I know you need to see it.”

I nod. Then I hug her. And then I am pleasantly surprised when she hugs me back.

Plutarch’s voice sounds distant as I open the envelope and start reading the last will and testament of Titus Vickers. “I sent the Leegs out to follow a rumor I heard from another old friend. They tracked her down and brought her back, and frankly I am disappointed in our medics kicking a little girl out into the street rather than making any effort to reunite her with her people. I am also disappointed in the medics who found you two with her, and didn’t bring her along. If I knew who-”

“Finnick, you need to see this.”

He is at my side in an instant.

Plutarch falls silent as Finnick reads the will over my shoulder.

There is lots of legal jargon that I only partly understand. I’ll need someone else to decipher it all, but below that comes the list of possessions. Cassia, Cassia, Cassia, and then, To Finnick Odair, the land described in the attached deed, named Parcel Two. To Annie Cresta—here, the nice typed will has been written on, and now says Cresta/Odair—my one-third ownership and management interest in the Greensea Fishing Company with fifty percent of the profits to go to her and the other fifty to go to Cassia Vickers. The ownership interest and all profits will revert to Cassia Vickers upon her eighteenth birthday. Until then, I trust Miss Cresta—again, handwriting has been inserted to amend this to Mrs. Odair—to operate in the interests of Cassia Vickers and look after her in business dealings and in life.

I skim over the handful of lines in which he leaves Gloss a full suit, nine specific pairs of socks, a bowl, and a house plant. Must be an inside joke from all those years of Titus sponsoring Gloss’s tributes.

There is more handwriting at the bottom, below Titus’s signature and two witnesses.

To Mr. and Mrs. Odair, enough money for a real wedding celebration. Not that your wedding in Thirteen wasn’t lovely, but I know Plutarch was dying to make it bigger and grander and everything you should have. Anything you need or want, I trust Cassia to make sure you get. In exchange, all I ask is that you look after her for me if I don’t make it through the war. All my best, Titus Vickers.

Cassia is looking at me, watching me re-read all this as Finnick takes it in for the first time.

I look up at her. “Is that… Is this what you want?”

She nods. “I don’t have anyone left. You’ve always been so nice to me. Dad trusted you to help run the company…”

I nod. How can I not? Cassia Vickers saved my life. She saw strength in me from the very beginning. She adored me even when I was falling apart. She was always overjoyed to see me, show me her newest dress, bring me a piece of cake so we could eat together. How can I not take care of this child who has already done everything for me?

Coin’s voice jars me back to reality. “Well?”

I look at Finnick. He’s still looking at the will, but his eyes aren’t moving. He’s done reading, he’s just thinking.

“Gloss is now the proud owner of Titus’s favorite house plant,” he says, folding the paper and giving it back to Cassia. “We’ll have to tell him at supper.”

“Mr. Odair, I am not stupid.”

“You’re right,” I say. “He’s also now the proud owner of nine pairs of socks, a bowl, and a suit.”

Finnick stands. “Thank you, Plutarch.”

Plutarch nods.

“And thank you two, for everything,” Finnick says to the Leegs. Then he heads for the door. “Cassia, we’re on the third floor. I’m sure we can get you your own room if you want, or you can stay in ours.”

Cassia follows him, and I follow her, keeping myself between Coin and Cassia.

Finnick goes on. “We’ll go back to the penthouse and help you pack up before we go back to Four, but not for a while. The streets are still dangerous, from what I hear. But we’re safe and snug here, and Cecelia’s kids are around too, so it won’t just be you and a bunch of us old people.”

Despite her misty eyes, Cassia laughs as Finnick grins at her.

A chair scrapes against the floor and Coin’s commanding voice rings out, “There will be a meeting of the victors in two days’ time.”

Finnick and I turn back to look at her.

“Fantastic,” I say. “I’ve really been missing Beetee.”

Coin glances at the sheets of paper in front of her, then her gaze bores back into us. “We will be deciding the fate of Panem and those who supported the Hunger Games. I expect you to consider everything carefully.”

I can read what is on the paper. It’s my new list. And there is already a line through the name at the bottom.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I see Katniss wandering the halls as we walk back to the stable. She looks completely out of it, like she can’t see any of us, she’s just living in her own little world.

We take Cassia to the medical station, where we find Katniss’s mother. Finnick wants a second opinion, one that we trust, before we assume she’s fine.

Cassia gets a full checkup and is declared fit as a fiddle.

“I’m glad they found you,” Katniss’s mother says with a sad smile at Cassia. “Not everyone has been that lucky.”

“We- we saw Prim,” I blurt. “Right before…”

She nods. Tears fill her eyes. “She…”

Finnick hugs her. “I’m so sorry.”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

It turns out Johanna knows how to work with horses too. She tells us Seven used them for logging sometimes in rougher terrain as she leads Sully and Nacks, the matching bay horses for Seven, with Cecelia’s daughters on their backs. But she isn’t as at home on a horse as Alvan, who practically has to be drug from the stables that night for supper.

As usual, Plutarch joins us for supper. Cassia sits stubbornly between me and Finnick, shooting Plutarch nervous and defiant glances. I think she’s not sure what to make of him yet. Coin she knows not to trust, but it must look like Plutarch could go either way, and that makes him even more dangerous to her.

We hold back after supper. Thankfully, Plutarch seems to know we need to talk to him, because he stays sitting as well. When everyone else is gone, Finnick moves to sit next to Plutarch.

Plutarch looks at us expectantly.

Finnick turns to Cassia. “Can he read it?”

Cassia nods.

Finnick passes Plutarch the envelope.

Plutarch opens it and reads in silence, even his face remaining remarkably impassive. Finally he nods to himself and looks back up at Cassia. “Your father was a remarkable man. And remarkably thorough in this.” He taps the will on the table.

Cassia nods again.

“Is it legal?” Finnick asks.

“Yes. It’s even witnessed properly, which is more than most people manage.”

“Will it stand?” Finnick presses him.

Plutarch sighs tiredly. “That I can’t promise. It should, but things are changing.”

“I’ve noticed,” I say darkly.

“I am sorry about all of it,” Plutarch says. “Cassia’s isn’t even the first story of rebel medics kicking people back out onto the streets with no effort to find their families.” He shakes his head. “Cassia, your father was a good man. We were friends in our younger days. I will do everything I can to honor his wishes and his legacy.”

“Thank you.” Cassia’s words are quiet, but for once she looks at Plutarch with something nearing trust.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

“Why?” Finnick asks Cassia as she piles blankets onto the big chair in the corner of our room.

“Why what?” She snuggles down into her nest of blankets.

“Why would he leave us that?”

“He said you asked to buy the land.”

“I did.”

Now it makes sense. Titus Vickers owned the land for Finnick’s house. At what point and why he acquired it, I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. It is Finnick’s now. Unless Coin and her government refuse to recognize that fact.

“He also said he told you he wasn’t selling. But when he updated his will last year, he added that part. And Annie. The rest of it he wrote in after we saw your wedding. I think he knew…” Cassia sniffles. “He knew he wouldn’t make it. He asked me, right after the screens went out during the Quarter Quell, if I couldn’t live with him anymore, if the Capitol wasn’t safe, who I’d want to take care of me.”

“And you said us?” I’m deeply honored by this, but also terrified. I’m not sure I want to be responsible for a twelve-year-old.

Cassia laughs through her tears. “I said Augustus.”

My breath catches in a fresh wave of grief.

“After they… after that, I said you.”

****

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Text

Tiger Shark

Part 7: The Sail

Chapter 44

I wake up in a room that is definitely not 2138, or 2110, or 2109, or 2289, or 405. It’s also not my room at home in Four. Any of my homes in Four. The house from so long ago when I was so little I barely remember it, the old house on Mako’s street, the Victor’s Village house, Finnick’s house across the street. I can’t be sure it’s not my room in the house Finnick has built in his mind.

The door opens.

“Annie?”

“That’s me,” I rasp. How long has it been? I sound like I haven’t used my voice for a week.

The woman chuckles. “You must be feeling okay then. I just need to run a couple quick tests and ask you a few questions, and then we can get you moved to a real room.”

A real room? Is this not a real room? Maybe I am in Finnick’s imaginary house.

The woman begins examining the machine I am hooked up to. “Do you know where you are?”

“I was in the Capitol. Close to Snow’s mansion. Am I still in the Capitol?”

She doesn’t answer, just goes to her next question. “Who are you?”

I thought I already answered that. I frown. “Annie Cresta. Odair. Maybe I should change that. Legally. Or maybe it’s already done.”

She chuckles again but looks at me like she wants more of an answer.

I go on. “I won the Seventieth Hunger Games. They called me the Tiger Shark of Four. I was reaped for the Quarter Quell. We broke out and some of us went to Thirteen. Then we went to the Capitol to fight. Actually, we went to the Capitol because we were recognizable and pretty, so we were a good propo squad.” I trail off. Alvan and Cashmere are running from the lizard mutts. Boggs’s legs are blown across the block. Gloss paces endlessly. Where is Gloss?

The woman is checking my IV. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I stare through the opposite wall.

When I finally speak, ten years or three seconds later, my voice is quiet. “The Capitol dropped parachutes. Bombed those kids, and then everyone who went to help them. And-” I sit straight up. “Where’s Cassia?”

The woman frowns, actually looking at me. “Who?”

“Cassia! Cassia Vickers! The little girl who was with us! Finnick and me! On the street!” Panic is rising in my chest. Cassia trusted us, and the first thing the rebels did was leave her? And now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t even know that this woman is with the rebels.

She shakes her head. “They only brought me you two.”

I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

“Whoa!” The woman grabs my shoulders, forcefully but gently. “Annie, you’re safe. I can’t have you running off yet. We haven’t even swept the whole mansion for traps yet.”

I feel like a netted fish. I am breathing too fast but still not getting enough air. My gaze darts from side to side, looking for an exit.

“Annie,” she says. “Annie, if you will wait for five minutes while I check in with the main doctor, then we can get you moved to your new room. Finnick will be there. I promise.”

I nod.

Promises, promises. Round and round we go, and either we’ll prove ourselves honorable, or we’ll prove ourselves liars, and all of it out of our control.

But five minutes later, the woman comes back in with a smile, unhooks my IV and the other machine, and leads me out into the hallway, all the way to the end, and up two flights of stairs. At the end of that hallway, she opens the last door on the right. There is a bed against the far wall, a very comfy looking chair in the corner, and a desk against the near wall. On the desk sits a box. Our box from Thirteen. Katniss’s mother is in the Capitol.

I turn around to say something to the woman, but she is already halfway back to the stairwell, and much closer is someone much more important.

“Finnick!”

I crash into him and he wraps me in a bone-crushing hug.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

No one seems to know where Cassia is. Katniss’s mother, who walked Finnick up to our room in Snow’s mansion, knows only that one of the medics who arrived after the second round of bombs recognized Finnick and me, laying unconscious where the force from the blast had knocked us against the building behind us. He and a few others brought us in. No one mentioned a little girl.

I add her to the list of people I have to mourn now that the war is over. Cassia, Prim, the Preps, Marius, Dalia, Titus, Boggs, Jackson, Homes, Mitchell, Castor, Pollux, Cashmere, Alvan.

Cressida and the Leegs come visit that afternoon. Leeg 2 and Gloss did indeed lose Katniss and Gale, but Leeg 2 realized they’d never find the rest of us, so she got Gloss to a safe spot and the two of them holed up the same way Finnick and I had with Cassia in the bakery.

Cressida tells us that our concern—which is a nice way of putting it—for Cassia has reached Plutarch’s ears. Plutarch knew Titus Vickers, so he’s concerned as well, and is using his connections to launch an under-the-table manhunt for Cassia.

She also tells us Katniss and Peeta were much closer to the bombs than we were. Both were badly burned, but the doctors say they have survived the worst of it and should pull through. The road to recovery will be long and painful though.

That almost makes me laugh. That’s just what being a victor is.

Since there is really nothing else they can do with us, the powers that be decide to put us up in Snow’s mansion until it is time for us to leave the Capitol. Finnick hates it because one hallway is set up exactly how he wanted to do part of our house, but now he can’t stomach the design.

“I hate it, Annie. I’m not building you a house that reminds me of him.”

I hate it because there aren’t enough people here. Johanna and Cecelia are still in Thirteen. Gloss is here, but his mind isn’t. He wanders aimlessly through the hallways. He hasn’t spoken since that day in the sewers. Cashmere isn’t here for her laugh to brighten the place. Alvan isn’t here to make her laugh anyway. Haymitch is drunk. Katniss and Peeta are still in the burn unit.

No one knows what to do with us while we wait. So we wait. We play cards. I draw a marble board and we use some chess pieces as marbles. Finnick still wins most of the time.

Johanna and Cecelia and Beetee arrive the next afternoon. Beetee attends lots of important meetings. The rest of us do not. We play half-hearted games of cards and catch each other up on life. The only good news anyone has, other than the war being over, is that Commander Paylor met Cecelia when she was getting off the hovercraft and told her that Mark and the kids all made it. They will be joining us in the Capitol in a few days, on a hovercraft scheduled to bring in more supplies from Thirteen that will stop in Eight along the way.

We spend the next morning wandering the mansion. I find myself in an office that looks vaguely familiar. It takes a long time to realize it’s because I’ve seen it on TV. This is Snow’s personal office.

I sit down at the desk, open one drawer after another, until, in the bottom left-hand drawer, I find seventy-five files. They are numbered, with 1 in the back and 74 in the front, and each has a name on it. I flip through them. 10 – Lucy Gray Baird, 11 – Mags Flanagan, 25 – Beauregard Farrier, 27 – Beck Sheer, 50 – Haymitch Abernathy, 65 – Finnick Odair, 67 – Augustus Braun, 69 – Megary Fallon, 70 – Annie Cresta, 71 – Johanna Mason, 74 – Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark.

Cecelia, Gloss.

Mags, Alvan, Cashmere.

I pull out my file, remove the piece of paper from the envelope. There is a rose stamped at the bottom. At the top is typed my father’s name. Jade. Coral. Mags has been crossed out. So has Beck. And Megary and Augustus. And so has Finnick. I frown. Then I see the line through my name on the envelope. They crossed us off when they thought we were dead.

I grab Finnick’s next. His parents, Mags, me. All crossed off. It’s weird to see my own name marked to show that I can’t be used to threaten anyone to play nice anymore. Like it was weird to hear Caesar Flickerman talk about me in the past tense and see my Quarter Quell picture on Capitol TV like they would have showed in the arena if I died.

I stare at the stack of files.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Johanna finds me surrounded by smashed vases and broken decorations. The files are scattered around the desk. I read them all. Gloss had two names in his: Cashmere and Augustus. Megary had over a dozen, all crossed off. Johanna had only her mother, also crossed off. I can’t explain it, but something about seeing the lists did more damage than the Hunger Games ever could have. The knowledge that after everything we went through, the Capitol was willing, prepared, to put us through more, just for their own selfish ends. How many people did Finnick sleep with to keep them from crossing my name off that list? How casually did they kill all fourteen people on Megary’s list, before deciding they just needed to kill her? And the real genius of the Quarter Quell finally hits me. Yes, it was about getting rid of Katniss and Peeta, but rebellion had been brewing among victors long before they joined our ranks. And all the people whose names were drawn were the loudest in their dissent. Johanna, Finnick, Beetee, Katniss. I, in my madness, who was of no real use to the Capitol, would serve their aims better by dying in the arena, so my name was drawn. Peeta, whose death would be useful to destroy Katniss, so his name was drawn. Haymitch volunteered, but I doubt the Capitol would have seen that as a huge loss. Those lists, those precious, horrible lists, weren’t enough, so they designed the perfect way to get rid of their most troublesome victors all at once.

Johanna picks up a few of the papers. “I guess you read them.”

I nod. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

“Me too.” She takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I wish I would have just done what they wanted. But I couldn’t have lived with myself. And that was never what she wanted me to do.” She flips through the papers. “I didn’t realize how many kids got reaped because they were on someone’s list.”

“Me neither.”

Merritt was on Alvan’s list, Cashmere on Gloss’s, Cally on three of Ten’s victors’ lists, and no doubt there are many more that I don’t know simply because their Games were too long ago or they died too early on for their names to find a permanent place in my memory.

Johanna sits down next to me. She is holding my list. “You know what this means though?” She points at my father, Jade, and Coral. “As far as the Capitol knew, and I imagine they were thorough, these three are still alive.”

Finnick slumps in. “Had to go get Gloss again,” he says. The doctors send him after Gloss when he starts wandering into places he shouldn’t. Gloss hasn’t been violent, he’s just a big guy, and the doctors found pretty quickly that he’ll listen to Finnick. “He was all the way…” Finnick trails off, looking at the destroyed décor on the floor and the scattered files, then looking at me. “So,” he says after a pause, “you’ve seen your list.”

I nod. “You were right.” The words are surprisingly hoarse, raspy with emotion. “It was one of the longer ones.” My voice cracks as I hold it up. “They hadn’t crossed off Dad. Or Coral and Jade. Maybe-” I haul in a breath. “Maybe they’re-”

“They’re alive,” Finnick says. “Snow is nothing if not thorough.”

Johanna nods. “He crossed you off based on video evidence. If they’re not crossed off, that means he didn’t even have flimsy proof they were dead. And you know he’d be watching.”

They’re right, of course. But I don’t want to get my hopes up. I know how Cecelia felt, all those weeks ago, in the hospital when she first got to Thirteen. She spent weeks not knowing about her family. And now the war is over and I still don’t know about mine.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

We have been there for another two days when we are sitting on a second-floor balcony, bundled in blankets against the frigid cold, watching the continued chaos of the very end of the war and the cleanup around the mansion. Johanna is in an appointment with her head doctor. Cecelia is waiting at the landing pad for Mark and the kids. Finnick and I are shivering in the cold, but can’t bear to go back inside. Inside is where the ghosts are. The ghosts and the lists.

The ground is pockmarked with small craters from the bombs. Pockmarked like our skin after the fog. Two people are staggering across the middle, just like Johanna hauling Nuts and Volts out of the jungle.

The jabberjays scream and the buffalo stampede.

Finnick leaps to his feet.

One of the people has fallen. The other tries to get them back up on their feet, then to pick them up and carry them, but they take two steps and collapse.

Finnick is moving.

I follow, trying to see what he sees, what is so important. I feel like I’m looking through thick morning fog and moving through chest-deep water.

“Let them through!” Finnick shouts.

I see now the dozen guards forming up in front of the two, who look about as threatening as Cassia Vickers.

I wonder what has happened to Cassia Vickers. If we’ll ever know. If the rebels got ahold of her and just killed her.

“Let them through!”

And then I see it. It’s like the fog has burned off and I can swim like a swordfish.

I pass Finnick, who is laughing as he bounds down the stairs that lead to the front garden. One of the guards steps into my path but I shove past him. I am the Tiger Shark.

I drop to my knees next to them, and I am laughing too as tears stream down my cheeks and I want to ask a million questions but all that comes out is “How?”

Cashmere smiles weakly, puts a hand on Alvan’s shoulder where he lays next to her, and slumps forward against me.

****

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