Heart of Gold • Finnick Odair

-39-

"I'm sorry about Mags."

Finnick shakes his head, "she was never gonna make it, so..." he trails off with in a distant voice.

Katniss didn't miss the way he squeezed Rosalie's hand to stop his own from shaking. Looking back up to his face, she sees him nod, gesturing behind her.

The three stand slowly when they see large monkey mutations surrounding them in the trees. Katniss readies her bow as the other two pick up their spear and trident slowly.

Rosalie looks at Katniss nodding to the cornucopia which was visible through a gap in the thick jungle bushes, sending a silent message that they had to get Peeta and run.

Katniss calls out for Peeta softly, "Peeta, walk over here slowly. I wanna show you something. Nice and slow so you don't startle it."

Peeta nods. However, as he turns and pulls the spile out of the tree, a mutt monkey roars in his face causing the startled boy to stumble on his feet slightly before almost crawling back down the hill towards Katniss and the others.

The cacophony of growls has them all on edge.

"We need to get to the beech," just as Rosalie says it, the mutts move to cover up their exit.

As the growling intensifies, the monkey mutts begin to bounce on their branches as if trying to egg the victors on. Katniss falls for the trick as she gets ready to shoot an arrow at one which only caused another to jump at her from behind.

Anticipating the move, Rosalie stabs her spear upwards, affectively killing the mutt as it drops to the water below.

Finnick and Rosalie fight the incoming mutts back to back.

Rosalie looks over to see Katniss in the water with a monkey mutt on top of her, snapping at her in attempts to kill.

She throws her spear at the monkey and it falls limp in the water. Peeta has helped Katniss out of the water, though the brunette is looking at Rosalie with a look of shock. The older girl just nods in response as she retrieved her spear from the mutts back.

The four begin their run towards the beach but a monkey tackles the Girl on Fire and Bread Boy causing the two to tumble to the ground.

Said monkey is about to lunge for Peeta when the morphling jumps in it's way instead of it attacking Peeta.

Whilst Finnick and Rosalie keep fighting them off, Peeta and Katniss take the woman onto the beach and into the water.

The mutts stop at the tree line.

Finnick is holding his trident in front of him whilst he crouched in between the monkey mutts and the love of his life. Even as the monkeys quieten down, he doesn't relax his arm. Not until Rosalie lays a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Finnick, it's okay, we're okay," she soothes. As the monkeys disperse one by one back into the forest, he allows himself to fall backwards, into Rosalie's waiting arms. She holds him close as he listens to her breathing to calm his own.

Meanwhile, a cannon goes off to signal the morphlings death.

Finnick did some fishing for food with his trident whilst Rosalie went to retrieve Katniss' arrows.

When she arrived back to the beach, she saw Katniss and Peeta sat on the sand as Finnick walked out of the water, fish in hand. "Hey Rosalie. Just in time for dinner," Peeta smiles.

Rosalie gives him a small smile in reply and drops the arrows beside Katniss with a shudder.

"Thank you," Katniss said genuinely, knowing it must've been a struggle to not only find them but to hold such a weapon that had killed so many people of hers.

Peeta passes Katniss a pearl as they eat their raw fish, no longer having any forcefield to cook anything with. Everything seemed quiet and calm until someone screams in the distance.

A gigantic wave comes rushing through one particular section of the jungle as a cannon fires. The wave seems to stay in its 'section' until it clashes with the cornucopia and dispersed into the sea water, just reaching the feet of the group as it makes the beech all damp.

"Someone's coming," Katniss readies her bow with an arrow Rosalie had collected.

Rosalie sees Johanna and Beetee trying to usher a startled person out of the jungle and onto the beach in the distance. Beetee looks more calm and soothing whereas Johanna looks just about done with the person as she throws her arm up in the air out of frustration. Beetee grabs the woman's hand as Wiress finally reveals herself.

"Johanna?!" Rosalie screams for her friend, running into the girls direction. She's immediately followed by Finnick.

"Rose! Finnick!" the bloodied girl shouts in reply.

The three embrace in a sort of group hug but Johanna keeps an arm round Rosalie's waist protectively as they pull away.

"What happened to you?" Rosalie asks her friend.

"I got 'em out. We were all the way deep into the jungle where I thought it was gonna be safe. That's when the rain started. Thought it was water, turned out to be blood. Hot, thick blood."

"Jeez, sorry Jo," Rosalie squeezes her friends arm as Wiress approaches muttering 'tick tock' under her breath.

"It was coming down, chocking us," Johanna pushes Wiress from her as gently as she can as she scoffs. "We were stumbling around, gagging on it, blind. That's when Blight hit the forcefield." She takes a breath to calm herself, "he wasn't much, but he was from home."

"Tick tock," Wiress keeps muttering resulting in Katniss asking what was wrong with her.

"She's in shock," Beetee replies, coming out of the water now clean of blood as Rosalie helps him to his feet. "Dehydration isn't helping. Do you have fresh water?"

"We can get some," Peeta tells him.

Johanna, getting more pissed off by the second, pushes Wiress off of her and tells her to stay down.

Katniss begins to push Johanna backwards as the angry girl screams, "I got them out for you!" Finnick breaks them apart by lifting Johanna up. "Let me go, Finnick! Let me go, i'm fine."

She walks further into the water followed by Rosalie who washes her axe for her whilst she rinses herself off.

Katniss soon joins the two in the water with Wiress. "What's Beetee got there?" she asks as she washes blood from Wiress' hair.

"The coil? it's some kind of wire," she tells her as Rosalie moves back to the beach.

Lightning strikes the tree again as Wiress mutters the same two words, looking at Katniss with eyes gleaming with pride, striking an idea in Katniss' head, "it's a clock. It's a clock!"