Our Love Could Be Lethal

Act II: Chariots of Fire

Finnick and I devise a plan to get him out of there. I ask him to pretend that Finnick is here to visit him. Besides, the only people who need to be fooled are Fallon, Augustus, and Clove, but the latter two will find out soon enough anyway. So I walk out a few minutes before them. I greet everyone in the kitchen and read over my notes like I usually do while eating a bowl of yogurt with granola and scrumptious strawberries.

A few minutes later, Finnick and Brutus enter, talking as if they finished a big conversation. Finnick shakes Brutus's hand, "See you later, man. Thanks for meeting with me, I'll see you later tonight."

Brutus turns back to return to his room.

Fallon looks flabbergasted. She looks between the door and Finnick as if trying to figure out how he got there. "Mr. Odair, I didn't see you come in..."

Finnick is in his voice that he uses when speaking to the press. "Oh, you know me, I'm elusive like that." He winks at Fallon, and she blushes.

He turns to me as if he's just noticed that I'm there. "Oh, hey, Octavia." He furrows his brows and looks at my face, he points to his lip. "Um, you got something right there," he says as he walks by me and towards the door.

That cheeky bastard. I touch my upper lip to find that there's yogurt on it. I wipe it off with a napkin. Enobaria gives me a knowing smirk. I bet that Finnick is pleased with himself right now.

Once Finnick is gone, Fallon begins to laugh to herself. Cato looks to me as if asking if Fallon usually laughs to herself. I shrug not knowing what is going on.

"Um, Fallon, are you okay?"

Apparently, something I'd said makes her laugh even more. She tries to catch her breath, speaking between laugh. "I'm sorry it's just that..." Fallon glances at me and starts laughing harder. "My friends have been asking me if you and Mr. Odair were an item because of the gossip columns... and of course with my job, I can't really say anything anyways ... but you and him." Fallon's laughter picks up again. "Oh, that's just so funny. I can't believe they think that. There's just no spark what-so-ever!"

I don't know whether to be offended that Fallon thinks that Finnick and I have 'no spark at all' or glad that she's not onto us.

Cato decides to join in on the conversation much to my dismay. "I think he's out of her league."

I'm gonna kill him. Enobaria chuckles, taking her meal to her bedroom, presumably to get away from the circus going on here.

Luckily Fallon is on my side because she doesn't yet know that Cato is my brother. "Young man, I'll have you know that your Mentor is one of the most beautiful and sought after women in all of Panem." She rests one of her gloved hands on my leg, patting it reassuringly. "If anything, you're out of his league, my dear."

I'm so going to use that one on Finnick next time he makes fun of me. "Young man, why don't you go find Clove and do something productive."

Having no choice but to listen to me, Cato gives me a glare when Fallon isn't looking and heads over to the tribute rooms.

Maybe at this point, I'll get some peace and quiet before things pick up this afternoon. I continue to look over all my notes, looking at the scores I'd given to each of the tributes on a scale of one to twelve on how big of a threat they were and making sure that I hadn't missed anything. I'd make a list like this at a few different points in the games, and I had to make sure that my first one was perfect.

Now, currently, the boy from 11 seems to be the biggest threat. For sure, the top threat at the moment. Maybe I...

I feel a presence staring at me and turn to see Fallon, who seems like she wants to say something to me.