PLATINUM • THE HUNGER GAMES ²

| 20. FOES REUNITED

     "What—! Where were you?" Finnick exclaimed jubilantly, letting his arms rest around my shoulders and gazing down at me with a bright green colour in his eyes.

     "We thought it was rain, you know, because of the lightning, and we were all so thirsty. But when it started coming down, it turned out to be blood. Thick hot blood," Johanna explained, "You couldn't see, you couldn't speak without getting a mouthful. We just staggered around, trying to get out of it. That's when Blight hit the force field."

     There was a little endearment in Johanna's voice as she said that. It was like she missed him, like she regretted it. Almost as if she thought it was her own fault. Of course it wasn't, it was only one person's fault, and it certainly wasn't her.

     "I'm sorry, Johanna," said Finnick, his voice as sympathetic as it could get.

     "Yeah, well, he wasn't much, but he was from home," she replied, "And he left me alone with these three. . ." Her foot grazed over Beetee with her shoe, whose brain seemed much more fully functional than his limbs at that moment in time. She grimaced, treating him as a slab of meat rather than a human being. "He got a knife in the back at the Cornucopia. Silver's not spoken until just then — a little shell-shocked I think. And her. . ." All our faces turned to spot Wiress, pacing about unpredictably across the sand, dragging her feet along as she chanted those two words over and over again with no sign in stopping.

     "Yeah, we know. Tick tock," I spat, shaking my arms into a folded formation to try and consume my annoyance.

     "Nuts is in shock," Johanna finished, glaring intensely at the District Three Victor, "Just stay down, will you?"

     "Lay off her," Katniss snapped, completely out of the blue. Johanna's expression turned sour.

     "Lay off her? Who do you think got them out of the bleeding jungle for you? You —" I caught a glare from Finnick, his hands tightly forming rough fists towards Johanna's disrespect. Abruptly, he pushed forward, separating the fox from the hound and cornering off the former to a secluded spot along the shoreline. Katniss appeared stunned, fragile even, by the rabid nature of the District Seven native eager to take a bite of the fresh meat stood before her. Peeta stood nonchalantly at her side, observing the situation from behind the protective cover, waiting for the right moment to speak up.

     Hopelessly, with my friends scattered across the little section of beach we seemed to have claimed, my body slumped onto the coarse sand beneath the useless lumps of skin at were my feet. With instincts now in complete control of my body, the skinny sticks that were my fingers caressed the burgundy layer atop my arms. It didn't seem to just be blood, but sunburn too. Unfortunately, supplies of sun cream in the arena were pretty scarce — the hope of receiving some were nonexistent and the graze of heat that tugged heinously around my limbs was unforgiving.

     I stared up at the bewildered pair above me. Their words were quietly sent to one another, their faces so close I wouldn't have been surprised if they had started to kiss right in front of me. Yet something about them appeared suspicious, and the glances that they exchanged were all too coincidental for my liking.

     "Two years ago, I told someone to kill me. They didn't. Are you?" I pondered, receiving unnerved expressions from the pair. "I understand I'm a burden. Might as well get it over and done with now? Saves time plotting a murder when the victim is more than willing."

     "Why would we want to kill you?" Katniss questioned, ignorance consuming her thoughts.

     "The exact same reason I'd want to kill you."

     "What's gotten to you, Silver?" Peeta continued, kneeling down ever so slightly to my quivering body.

     I held my breath whispering, "Because you haven't been through this. . . You're bloody lucky! You left with someone you loved, but — no, I'm staying in this god forsaken arena, in this god forsaken life with nothing! The two people I love are probably dead by now."

     Peeta loomed over my figure, soothing me gently as his hand hugged my arm, unaffected by the torture that festered upon the battlefield of my skin. I could see the warmth in his eyes, a deeply loved ocean of blue on his face, and the kindness in his touch. He wasn't afraid of me, he wasn't those people in the streets of District Ten telling tall tales of their most recent Victor in the darkness of their homes. Peeta was selfless, a personality trait that I craved to be near me for my health. I noticed him smile whilst Katniss watched on, grimacing silently with perhaps a pang on sympathy lingering in the depths of her heart.

     Shortly, he joined me sat amongst the ripples of stain blood in the sand in a half hug. He gestured for Katniss to sit too, but she refused, instead making a beeline for Beetee's withering body near the water. In reaction, he adjusted himself, following Katniss' movements like a guardian angel, grinning when she had finally reached the foaming shoreline.

     "You're in shock," Peeta acknowledged.

     I tried my hardest to laugh at his simple statement, but the sound was delivered more like a scoff, despite my intentions.

     "No, I'm not."

     "I'm sorry, about Corey, I mean," he explained, "If I'd have been there I would have —"

     "I don't need your pity, Peeta."

     "But you're stronger than this. You're not this —" Gently, I felt his has place on mine, escorting it away from clutching my legs defensively. "— this isn't you."

     "What am I? If you're so certain that I'm not this. . . this monster that I've always been," I sobbed, afraid to release Peeta's hold on my hand.

     "You're grieving."

     "This isn't grief, this is desperation. Can't you see?"

     "You're as much as a monster as I am," he pleaded, the paleness of his eyes begging with me to agree with him for once. And, at last, as if he had given up, he sighed, lifting his body up and making his way over to Katniss and Beetee by the lake. My body began to shake again, almost like his touch had calmed my worry in a matter of moments. Although, as I peered up, he was no longer there to return the desperate gaze directed towards his comforting blue eyes, but an abyss of forest and sand, weaving its way across the horizon like a cage of sorrow circling me in a cage of truth.

     Johanna and Finnick argued in the distance, the fox's legs skimming the water with her axe in an act of defiance, taking that last little action out on the Capitol built arena. Each of their voices were as loud as the other, Finnick's softer, but riddled with that characteristic independent that oozed control. Johanna's was feisty, battling in her attempts for her words to infiltrate his thoughts in a single sentence, the sarcasm running rampant on its mission. There was something that was calm about their conversation, however. Their words were planned out neatly, selected precisely for the right meaning at the right time. Yet mine was much less than that. It was spontaneous, abrupt and meaningless. My heart had taken the reins on my thoughts now. Now it was a one way road to destruction.

     Peeta was always right. I was as much of a monster as he was.

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