ROOFTOP - finnick odair

chapter seventeen

"you don't own me
i'm not just one of your many toys."

~

Finnick's POV:

"Can someone tell me why I'm here?" I ask, crossing my arms.

"We'll get to that in a minute," Plutarch Heavensbee says, standing up from his chair.

"We're still waiting on one more."

Just as the words leave his mouth, the door slides open again, and in steps Johanna. She grabs a seat next to me and Plutarch returns to his with a slight smile.

"Jo? Why the hell are we here?" I whisper, and she shrugs.

"Don't know. But I was almost just about to kill someone back there, so this was good timing. What's the big deal about public changing anyway?"

I smile and turn back to face Plutarch. Haymitch Abernathy stumbles out of another room and lets himself collapse into the chair. The more the merrier, I guess.

"Well, now that we have everyone here, I suppose no time should be wasted."

I look around - I see at least half of the districts sitting at the table.

"We brought you all here to talk about the rebellion."

He tells us how the girl from Twelve - Katniss Everdeen - is the Mockingjay. He tells us that we need to keep her alive to get her back to District Thirteen. He tells us that we're trying to stop the Games and her being alive is the only way that can happen.

Johanna is the first to speak after he's finished. "And you really expect all of us to risk our lives for her?"

"Well I suppose, yes. But it's more than that. You save her, she saves you."

"What the hell is that even supposed to mean?" Someone pipes in from the other side of the table. There's a few minutes of bickering back and forth before Plutarch finally gets them to silence.

"She is the spark that we need. As long as she's alive, we keep the revolution going, uniting all thirteen districts against the Capitol."

I glance at Johanna. I can tell she's thinking about it, hard, although I'm not sure what I have to say. I wouldn't die for her, but I would die if that means that the Games are stopped. If the Capitol is taken over. If Snow is killed. Because those are the things that ruined my life.

"Anyway, we chose all of you in particular because you've all been here the longest. According to our records and your status in our books, you are the only ones we found we could trust."

"Caterina Grey." My voice speaks up before I even know what's happening. "She should be here, too."

Haymitch shakes his head. "No. Nope. That one scares me."

"Are you serious?"

"As far as we're concerned, Caterina is not suitable for this job. She will try to tell Katniss or warn her about what will happen. Hell, she won't consider herself lucky that we're saving her, she'll ask us why we didn't save everyone else."

I know he's right. But I can't help but feel guilty for hiding this from her.

"Basically what we're saying is, your girlfriend will expose us and jeopardize our entire plan."

"She's not an idiot," Johanna chimes in with a roll of her eyes.

"Well, there is a risk here and I'm not willing to take it. Not with something as important as this. So are we all good?"