𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕 (Finnick Odair)

𝚒𝚟.

𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛: 𝚒𝚟.

𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝚔𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜. Saffreen gripped the weapons in her hands, examining them thoroughly. They were like the ones she had used in the Quarter Quell. Thin, straight, tapering out only slightly at the ends, both of which were deadly sharp.  They were balanced perfectly in the middle.

Beetee watched her turn them over in her hands. "I have another set that are poison-tipped," he said. "But I didn't think you'd want to try those just yet."

She shook her head. "Good call."

There were rows of targets in front of her. She tried with her good arm and managed a hit to the ring second to the center. She was out of practice, but still good.

Her bad arm was another issue entirely. She had never been as good with it, it was her non-dominant arm, but if push came to shove, she was always at least able to manage a hit, if not a killing one. But now, she couldn't even hit the target. Every throw ached.

Beetee watched her as she worked first with her good arm, finally managing hits to the center, and then her bad arm.

She flinched and groaned with every painful throw but didn't stop until she felt something pull in her shoulder and let out a sharp breath, dropping the knife she had just picked up.

There were tears in her eyes, not from pain but anger. Beetee reached for her arm. "You'll get it," he said. "It'll just take time."

"I won't be able to," Saffreen answered with a sigh, running her fingers through her hair. "If I kept going, I'd ruin my arm more than it already is."

"You'll get it," Beetee repeated. "I'm sure you will."

Saffreen and Finnick joined Katniss in the hospital that afternoon for dinner. Her visit to Eight had ended badly. A hospital bombed and her leg damaged. But at least the camera crew had gotten good footage of it all. That seemed to be what Coin was happiest about. Not that Katniss had taken down Capitol airstrike drones, but that it had been caught on camera.

Katniss buried her face in her pillow when the footage aired of the hospital attack. Finnick spoke with a strange calm. "People should know what happened. And now they do."

"Let's turn it off before they air it again," Katniss urged. Saffreen reached for the remote, but then Katniss stated, "Wait!"

Saffreen understood once she processed the face on the screen.

"Caesar?" she said softly.