Finnick Odair's Story: Dark Secrets (The Hunger Games Fanfiction)

The Final Two

Annie's POV:

Six tributes left, I heard the cannon in the sky and my heart leapt. Only five people stand in the way of my victory, but I have no idea how to kill them. I've been hiding for nearly two days in an isolated tree right on the edge of the arena. The hollowness of the trunk made it simple for me to climb inside and get comfortable in a nest of leaves. Zac has visited me countless times, sometimes to taunt me about how I fell for him, sometimes to try and convince me that he is actually in love with me. My mother has also been to see me, but that's equally impossible; both my parents died when I was eight.

I remember it like it was yesterday, we were swimming in the sea on the hottest day of the year. That morning, we planned to take a picnic, and sit amongst the tall, wild grass that grows in the sand, before swimming together. I could swim before I could walk properly, and by the time I was six I was one of the strongest swimmers in the school, thanks to my parents.

Everything was going so well, we ate our sandwiches, laughing and joking like we always did. We dumped our empty picnic basket in the sand and ran eagerly towards the ocean, diving in as if we hadn't been in there for years. I loved, and still love, the feeling of the wet sand in between my toes, the tickling of the small waves on my back, the delicate splashes of water against my face as I glide back and forth through the water.

But everything went wrong. A storm on the hottest day of the year, really? As a tall wave engulfed my father, my mother screamed his name in desperation, flailing around in the water as if she had lost the ability to swim. She disappeared too, and I was dragged away from the ferocious sea by a complete stranger before the wave could capture me as well.

So I lived with my auntie and uncle until I was sixteen before moving out to my own house, with money my parents had left me. I guess I'll never get to make that house really nice, decorate the walls or buy new furniture.

''Annie?'' a voice is whispering from outside the tree trunk. It sounds like a boy, but he's so quiet it's hard to tell. Peering out of a small crevice, I see Zac standing in a pile of leaves.

''Leave me alone,'' I say timidly, closing and opening my eyes tightly, forcing him to go away. But he doesn't.

"Annie, listen to me," he says.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up. Go away," I plead with him, continuously shaking my head to try and knock the image from my brain. Zac doesn't go, he just stands there, his eyebrows knotted in pity and sadness.

I need to get out of here. I gather up my things, food and medicine sent to me by Finnick, put them in my backpack and start to walk away from the tree, away from Zac. Leaves crunch beneath my feet as I run closer and closer to the Cornucopia, eager to see what's going on and to get away from the voices in my head that won't leave me alone.

Finnick's POV:

As soon as I get home after an exhausting day, I take dinner up to my bedroom with the intention of watching the Games intently. Admittedly, it was sort of humiliating to have to admit to Caesar that I hadn't watched any of the Games, for various unexplainable reasons. So I firmly decided I would sit down, turn on the television and pray that Annie survives. Munching absent-mindedly on a piece of bread, I switch on the screen to see Annie, running away from the tree in which she's been hiding, closer and closer to the Cornucopia, where some of the remaining tributes are gathered. It looks as if Aimee and Elijah are trying to make an alliance with the girl from 9, Cassie.

"Help us kill the tributes from 6, and we won't kill you now," Elijah says, brandishing his bow and arrow. He smiles widely and pushes his blonde hair from his face.