Pawn of Panem | Finnick Odair [2]

Rescue and Repent : 22

I don't know if it will work, but when the television crew's all assembled aboveground, I ask Cressida if she could start out by asking me about Peeta. I take a seat on the fallen marble pillar where I had my breakdown, wait for the red light and Cressida's question.

"How did you meet Peeta?" she asks.

And then I do the thing that everyone has wanted since my first interview. I open up. "When I met Peeta, we were in the lineup before we were to set out on our chariots." I talk about that awful day when I was dressed in Danno's beautiful outfit, how Peeta held his hand out to me, unlike anyone ever before. He showed me kindness. "We had never even spoken. The first time I ever talked to Peeta, he showed me a kindness I had never received."

"So, he barely knew you, and decided he was going to be friends with you," says Cressida.

"I guess so." I allow myself a small smile.

"How are you doing with his capture?" she asks.

"Not well. I know at any moment Snow could kill him or Gerard. Especially since Peeta warned Thirteen about the bombing. It's a terrible thing to live with," I say. "But because of what they're putting them through, I don't have any reservations anymore. About doing whatever it takes to destroy the Capitol. I'm finally free." I turn my gaze skyward and watch the flight of a hawk across the sky. "President Snow once admitted to me that the Capitol was fragile. At the time, I didn't know what he meant. It was hard to see clearly because I was so afraid. Now I'm not. The Capitol's fragile because it depends on the districts for everything. Food, energy, even the Peacekeepers that police us. If we declare our freedom, the Capitol collapses. President Snow, thanks to you, I'm officially declaring mine today."

I've been sufficient, if not dazzling. Everyone loves the friendship story. But it's my message to President Snow that gets the wheels spinning in Plutarch's brain. He hastily calls Finnick and Haymitch over and they have a brief but intense conversation that I can see Haymitch isn't happy with. Plutarch seems to win -- Finnick's pale but nodding his head by the end of it.

As Finnick moves to take my seat before the camera, Haymitch tells him, "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do. If it will help Sage." Finnick balls up fingers. "I'm ready."

I don't know what to expect. A love story about us? An account of the abuses in District 4? But Finnick Odair takes a completely different tack.

"President Snow used to... sell me... my body, that is," Finnick begins in a flat, removed tone. "I wasn't the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it."

That explains it, then. Finnick's parade of lovers in the Capitol. They were never real lovers. Just people like our old Head Peacekeeper, Cray, who bought desperate girls to devour and discard because he could. I want to interrupt the taping and beg Finnick's forgiveness for every false thought I've ever had about him. But we have a job to do, and I sense Finnick's role will be far more effective than mine.

"I wasn't the only one, but I was the most popular," he says. "And perhaps the most defenseless, because the people I loved were so defenseless. To make themselves feel better, my patrons would make presents of money or jewelry, but I found a much more valuable form of payment."

Secrets, I think. That's what Finnick told me his lovers paid him in, only I thought the whole arrangement was by his choice.

"Secrets," he says, echoing my thoughts, looking at me before back to the camera. "And this is where you're going to want to stay tuned, President Snow, because so very many of them were about you. But let's begin with some of the others."