Heart of Gold • Finnick Odair

-64-

"I made it up," Katniss says, looking around at all the broken and mourning people. "All of it. There is no special mission from Coin. There's only my plan. Everyone that's dead is because of me. I lied."

Rosalie was unable to speak at the moment so was glad when Cressida did, "we know. We all knew."

"The soldiers from thirteen?" Katniss wonders.

"They did too," Cressida tells her. "Did you really believe that Jackson thought you had orders from Coin?"

"You're not as good a liar as you think you are," Johanna attempts to lighten the mood, her arms wrapped around Rosalie as she stroked her head with one hand.

"Yeah. Jackson trusted Boggs, and he clearly wanted you to go on," Cressida continues.

"I never meant for this to happen," Katniss' voice is quiet, vulnerable. "I failed. I killed them. I killed Finnick."

She looks over at Rosalie's vulnerable figure, noticing her flinch slightly at her sentence.

Rosalie lifts her head, her glossy eyes meeting Katniss, "no, you ended his pain."

That's all she was able to say without her voice cracking, without breaking down completely.

Peeta begins to list names of people who've died. "What do all those deaths mean? They mean our lives were never ours. There was no real life, because we didn't have any choice. Our lives belong to Snow and our deaths do too. But if you kill him, Katniss, if you end all of this, all those deaths, they mean something." He lists more names, Finnick being one of them. "They chose this. They chose you."

Rosalie doesn't sleep at all that night, despite the exhaustion weighing down on her. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees his face. But not the face she loves so much, not the face she would stare at in the morning when he looked at peace in his sleep, not the eyes that softened whenever he looked at her, not the lips that kissed her with all the love in his body. She saw the pained face of her husband as he was piled onto by mutts, his eyes screaming fear, his lips drawn into a tight accepting smile. She didn't see the hands that would hold her with a gentleness she's never felt from anyone before, but she saw the hands that were reaching up out of a pile of lizard-like bodies. She didn't hear his soft, comforting voice or contagious laughter but his screams of agony and fear.

She faintly hears bombs followed by movements as people around her began to move and prepare. She just sat where she was. If she was told to do something, she'd do it without complaint. If not, she would sit and stare at the spot of mould on the wall she's been staring at all night.

Suddenly a mandatory viewing comes onto the small projected tv. When she hears Snow's voice, it takes everything in her not to stand to her feet and throw the technology against the wall and stomp on it until it breaks into hundreds of pieces, beyond repair.

"To all Capitol citizens more than a half mile outside the City Circle, I am announcing a mandatory evacuation. Come to the mansion. I am promising you shelter and sanctuary. All refugees, come to my home. And there you will be provided with food, medicine, safety for your children, and you will have my solemn oath to protect you with my dying breath," Snow speaks.

"Wish he'd hurry up with that last part," Cressida mutters and a tiny smile forms on Rosalie's face.

"Our enemy is not like us. They do not share our values," Snow says. "They have never known our comfort and our sophistication. And they despise us for it. Make no mistake. They are not coming to liberate us. The are coming to destroy our way of life. They are coming to bury us."

"Is he still in the mansion?" Katniss asks Peeta.

"Yeah, I recognise the room," he replies.

They come up with a plan that Katniss, Rosalie and Gale will dress up as refugees.

Originally, Rosalie didn't want to go, but simultaneously she couldn't miss Snow's death. 

Besides, Katniss had asked her to be there with her, so she'd be there.

Katniss hesitantly approaches Rosalie, who is with Johanna, to say goodbye before they leave.

"Rosalie?"

The girl looks up and offers Katniss a tiny smile, "yeah?"

"We ready?" she offers a smile causing Rosalie to nod before turning to Johanna. Katniss speaks again, "I'll make sure he dies, he'll never hurt any of us again, I promise."

"Give him hell," Johanna tells her before turning to give Rosalie one last tight hug before pulling away.

Johanna would've come but her anxiety is still too high from being in the sewers as she doesn't do too well with water since her capture.

And just moments later, Rosalie, Katniss and Gale are out the door in their disguises.

Whilst walking, the trio realise Peacekeepers are pulling down people's hoods and checking their faces.

They attempt to turn but find that there are Peacekeepers behind them too.

They continue to mindlessly walk forward, minds running for an idea of what to do when they reach the line of guards.

A white covered hand reaches out for Katniss' shoulder but an explosion interrupts the action as people scream 'it's the rebels.'

The trio fall to the ground but as Gale gets up, Katniss makes no attempt to move as she stares off into the distance.

Rosalie follows her gaze to see a small child in a yellow coat crying over her dead mother's body.

She swallows back a feeling of nausea and tugs on Katniss' arm, "come on, we've got to go."

The three begin running, dodging bullets as they go, until they reach a barricade and jump over it.

Gale snatches a gun off of a Peacekeeper whilst Katniss and Rosalie catch their breath, leaning against the barricade as gunshots continue to ring in their heads from both the Peacekeepers and the rebels.

"Come on, come on," Gale ushers the two girls to their feet.

They begin running again until they find a truck to crouch behind. However, the moment is short lived as the vehicle is blown up. Katniss and Rosalie jump to one side as Gale jumps to the other.

They look over to see Gale in the arms of two Peacekeepers. Katniss grabs her bow and aims as Gale yells at her to shoot him, but she doesn't.

He's taken away and Rosalie quickly takes Katniss off to the side, behind the flipped vehicle for some cover, whilst they decide what to do.

They set off running yet again as explosions continue to go off.

When they reach the crowd by the gate, they watch people pass their children forwards. Katniss tugs on Rosalie's sleeve and gestures to the vehicle to her side. She nods and the two girls begin to climb up to get a better view of what was going on.

Children are lifted into a fenced area in front of the gate by Peacekeepers as they all scream and cry for their parents and families, hands raised in the air.

The pair glance up at a Capitol plane that drops small parcels. People reach out for them, believing them to be gifts.

That is until they all explode.

Katniss and Rosalie are thrown to the ground, ears ringing. As the smoke begins to clear, they see medics run forward to care for the minority of people who had survived. All the two can do is stare at the sight of so many children now dead on the ground.

"Prim? Primrose!" Katniss calls to her sister and a blonde head lifts up from an injured child.

From beside the girl, Rosalie sees Luna look up at the sound of Katniss' voice before her gaze moves towards Rosalie. Their eyes meet and their shocked expressions mirror each other.

She sees the girls lips move as she calls for her, "Rose?"

"Luna!" Rosalie calls to the girl, desperately wanting to tell her to run, to leave, to get someplace safer. But she has no time to do so as another explosion throws both her and Katniss to the ground.

Flames luck at her skin, scorching her coat and burning her flesh but all she can think of is whether or not Luna survived...