The Reaper | F. Odair

Sixteen

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Aaron
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The sun's almost fully set. Everyone is mostly quiet, dad and Beetee are whispering to one another with Johanna occasionally butting in, but Finnick and I are silent. My eyes continuously drift back behind me, Katniss and Peeta are whispering, but everytime I look they stop -- the girl giving me a hard glare each time. She didn't know what the hell was going on, so maybe she was plotting to kill us. It'd make sense with her being so far back.
The sky only got darker and darker. The water quit shining as much, as the creatures in every part of the jungle slowly grew loud. We barely hit the tree line about thirty minutes later and it was pitch black.

We barely make it a few minutes into the trees and another cannon shot goes off. Everyone slowly comes to a stop at the sounds of the Capitol's anthem breaking the peaceful silence. My eyes drift up and I'm met with a smiling Cashmere that's followed by a smirking Gloss. It skips 2 and goes to 3, with Wiress appearing on screen. I can see Beetee adjusting his glasses and looking down sorrowfully. The woman disappears and Mags comes on -- her sweet loving smile is shining as she looks down at us. Finnick's hand tightens in mine.
It goes through 5, 6, 7, and 11 -- dad's teeth visibly grit at the sight of Blight's stern face. And the screen goes out, the silence returning. It was really just us and them. Were there more of us? Yes, but a career was a career, not a normal tribute.

My fingers tighten around Finnick's own now as we continue forward. It's slow, we're all obviously worried about what's going to happen, worried this won't work, but I don't think anyone's said it out loud yet. No one's backed out yet. I slowly lean my head against Finnick's shoulder as we walk, and almost immediately I can feel him kissing my head.

"How's your hand?" he whispers.

I look up to him and raise my left hand slowly, "unusable." I whisper back with a weak grin. "But, it should be fine."

He reaches for it and brings it to his lips, kissing it gently. "We'll get it fixed."

"Hopefully we will." I whisper with a stronger grin as we approach an open clearing of the trees. My hand drops and the two of us stop as Beete walks forward towards the tree.

It was large -- large as in it probably hit close to the barrier of the arena. Oddly shaped branches stuck out of it, oddly shaped and coloured vines were wrapped around it or hung off it. It was like a child's dream, the perfect tree to climb and explore. Beetee slowly walks to the right side of the thing, muttering. "Minimal charing... It's an impressive conductor too..." he looks back at us with a smile. "Let's get started, shall we?"

"What do you want us to do?" Johanna asks.

"You and Katniss," he points at the two, "give me a quick hand in wrapping this around. Rest of you, play bodyguard." Beetee said as the two girls dragged their feet over. Beetee began to loudly explain how this would work -- it went straight over my head though. He's talking about the averages of a typical lightning strike and the power it holds, how much damage it can do to a singular person on its own. My head's spinning.

I knew knives and scythes, not nuts and volts.

Finnick looks down at me, his fingers still intertwined with my own as I fidget with the golden ring on my neck. It's loose. "You okay?" Finnick suddenly asks.

"The chain's breaking..." I murmur, pulling my hand away and slowly taking the necklace off. One of the hooks was halfway off, the round cord that connected to two others was coming apart -- bent. "Shit..."

"Want me to hold onto it?"

"How are you going to hold onto it?"

"Give it." he mutters with a smile, I slowly hand it to him and he pulls the golden ring off of it's chain. He slowly takes off his own necklace and undoes it, sliding the ring down the left side. "Now you won't lose it."