Make Them Burn

The Baby and Me, Propo 1, Take 10,000

"I'll make sure you live long enough to be happy." I tell her.

She sighs with an exasperated smile on her face. "Six people." Johanna says softly. "I've killed six people. Made six families cry. Hell, I killed my own friend. I killed one of your closest friends. Why do you not hate me?"

I lean forward and embrace her. Johanna and I have never hugged before-not once. Not when we've said goodbye or even I've had emotional breakdowns. Not even when she came back from the Capitol.

I look her straight in the eyes. "I've run dry on hate."

Johanna wipes her eyes and spits on the floor. "I can't believe I'm not going."

"Me either."

She sighs. "It'll just be us, Haymitch, and Annie." Johanna says. "What're we gonna do?"

Johanna reaches up to run her fingers through her hair, only to realize there's none there. She always used to run her fingers through her hair. Johanna sighs and her eyes fill with tears. "They screwed us up good, didn't they?"

***

Corie finds me that afternoon and tells me she's in a squad with Chase, Gale, Finnick, Everdeen, and Boggs.

"We leave in a few hours." She tells me. Corie looks down at my stomach. "Hopefully we'll be back in time to see him or her be born. It's all Chase talks about during training."

I smile lightly. "He's really excited." I pat my stomach. "I want him to be with me through this, but I guess he'll be helping the cause though."

Corie smiles. "You two will do fine. The way you talk about each other lets me know you'll be in love forever."

I've never thought long-term until now. Everything before my first Games, and up until getting rescued from the second games, I didn't wonder about if the Capitol would ever fall. If there's a forever for us, then maybe Chase and I will be together forever. Who knows? Maybe we'll win this war.

We go to to Special Defense, and I get the feeling that I am not supposed to be where I am.

Finnick, Gale, Everdeen, and even Chase are there. This is the Star Squad meeting.

Plutarch smiles at me and presses a button. A holographic model of the Capitol pops up. "This, for example, is the area surrounding one of the Peacekeepers' barracks. Not unimportant, but not the most crucial of targets, and yet look." Lights pop up and Plutarch points to them. "Each light is called a pod.cit represents a different obstacle, the nature of which could be anything from a bomb to a band of mutts. Make no mistake, whatever it contains is designed to either trap or kill you. Some have been in place since the Dark Days, others developed over the years. To be honest, I created a fair number myself. This program, which one of our people absconded with when we left the Capitol, is our most recent information. They don't know we have it. But even so, it's likely that new pods have been activated in the past few months."

I almost collapse from sheer surprise. Pods controlled by the Gamemakers... It's just like the Hunger Games. Everdeen, Finnick, Chase and I exchange a look.

"Ladies and gentleman...." Finnick murmurs.

Everdeen smiles coldly. "Let the 76th Hunger Games begin!"

Silence falls across the room as Everdeen forces a laugh. Just to make her feel better, Chase, Finnick and I chuckle too.

"I don't even know why you bothered to put us Victors through training, Plutarch." Everdeen jokes.

Finnick smirks. "Yeah, we're already the best-equipped soldiers you have."

Plutarch points at them impatiently. "Do not think that fact escapes me. Now back in line, soldiers. I have a presentation to finish."

He finishes, and the rest of the presentation is rather boring. I say goodbye to Corie, who has to go say goodbye to her mother. Me and the other Victors- Finnick, Chase, Everdeen, we keep walking around the halls talking.

"What will I tell Annie?" Finnick says softly.

We hit a wall and slide down together, all four of us. "Nothing." Everdeen says. "That's what my mother and sister will be hearing from me."

"If she sees that holograph-"

Everdeen puts a hand up. "She won't. It's classified information. It must be."

I nod. "Yeah, and more people than one will live." I say.

Chase's brows furrow. "You still want to go, right?"

"Of course. I want to destroy Snow as much as you do." He says.

Everdeen nods convincingly. "It won't be like the others." She tells him. "This time Snow will be a player, too."

That will be better-Snow is no different from any other players. A taste of his own medicine.

Haymitch finds us. He's real jittery, and on edge. "Johanna's back in the hospital."

Of course, I know this, but Finnick and Everdeen are shocked. They are putting two and two together about how Jo can't go to the Capitol now.

Everdeen and Finnick go to visit Johanna. They leave in five hours. Chase and I look at each other. We are determined to spend one last hour together.