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The first thing she felt was relief.
Annie didn’t know if she’d thought she’d die there, locked up in that white room. The walls had been caving in on her, crushing her. It had been underground, she’d felt it, felt the earth pressing down hard on her. She’d tried as hard as she could not to think about it.
She wasn’t relieved that she wasn’t there any longer. She was relieved that around her wasn’t white.
She launched herself up and at the closest person to her before her mind caught up with her body. Her nails dug in, hard, she felt skin break under her fingertips, and then she felt a pair of arms close around her, pulling her back.
They hadn’t tied her down. Wherever they were taking her, they hadn’t bothered to tie her down on the way. That was their mistake.
It took three people to even begin to contain her. They didn’t know to go for her wrists, didn’t know to try and avoid her teeth, didn’t know how tightly they’d need to hold her to keep her from getting free. It made her fight harder.
“Hey!”
The arms on Annie stilled. She immediately twisted herself free.
“Leave her alone,” Johanna spat. She was slowly pushing herself up to rest on her elbows, she was a horrible shade of grey, and she was clearly so angry that Annie recoiled, even though it wasn’t directed at her. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
There was a man sitting next to Johanna, a piece of fabric pressed to his cheek. Annie could see the blood soaking through it.
“You bit him?”
Johanna leaned over and spat in the man’s lap. He didn’t move.
Annie wasn’t stupid. She didn’t bother to ask where they were going. Wherever it was, they weren’t trying to subdue her on the way there, and that somehow made it worse. They should’ve tied her down, drugged her. She had no idea how they’d even gotten on the hovercraft.
She couldn’t remember anything.
Someone cleared their throat. “We’re going to District Thirteen.”
Annie raised an eyebrow.
“Save your breath,” Johanna said, trying to sound bored. Annie could still hear the tremor in her voice.
“Johanna.”
“They’re lying to us,” Johanna said, her voice rising. “You think they’d come for us? Think they give a shit? You know more than any of us about being a pawn. You’re just something they use, we all are.”
Annie thought about it.
“You’re right,” she said. “They wouldn’t come for us. But they’d come for him.”
She’d seen Peeta right away. He was on her left side, unconscious, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
She and Johanna had never figured out what they were doing to Peeta.
“Don’t think like that,” Johanna said brusquely, then lapsed into silence. Her arms were shaking from the effort of keeping her propped up. Annie knew she wasn’t going to lay back down.
Annie looked warily back at the three men. They were sizing her up, she could see it. She took a step back, away from them, and then when they didn’t come after her, she kept backing up until she felt her back collide with the wall of the hovercraft. She slid down it and pulled her knees into her chest, staring the three of them down.
She wished so badly she could find something, anything to use that wasn’t her fists or her fingernails, but she couldn’t move to look around. She couldn’t take her eyes off them, she couldn’t.
Annie jumped when the door started to swing open.
The others got up. Annie didn’t move.
“You want them to separate us?” Johanna asked impatiently.
Annie pushed herself to her feet and immediately stumbled, her knees giving way underneath her. Someone grabbed her elbow and Annie lashed out without thinking about it, felt someone’s nose give way under her hand.
She heard Johanna start screaming and before Annie could think about it, she took off running after her. Someone was carrying Johanna and she was thrashing and fighting them, and Annie couldn’t do anything without risking that they’d drop Johanna, and Johanna was so thin that if she fell, Annie was worried that something would break. All she could do was follow them as closely as she dared.
They were still underground. She shuddered.
There would be a moment when she and Johanna could get the better of them. They were awake, Annie could feel her blood rushing in her temples. They could get the drop on them, get Peeta, and get out of there. They could do it. Annie didn’t know how far they’d get, but the three of them would be together, and she knew that the three of them would be enough to stop those men. There hadn’t been enough to keep all three of them down.
They rounded a corner and Annie immediately planted her feet.
“No,” she said.
It was a medical wing. She could recognize that. She could feel how badly she was shaking.
Johanna looked over, saw where they were, and immediately twisted herself free, sending both her and the man carrying her to the ground in a heap. She rushed to Annie before they could catch her and started dragging her back, her nails digging into Annie’s arm.
They collided with people behind them and Annie felt someone pull her away from Johanna and start dragging both of them back into the ward. She couldn’t see Peeta anywhere. Couldn’t see anything.
They got her on a bed. She immediately pushed her way up and nearly got off it. They got her back down, there were people trying to hold her down, and she knew what it meant.
“Annie,” someone said softly.
Annie’s head snapped over. She didn’t recognize who was talking to her.
It was a nurse. She was short. She had long blonde hair, and she had a needle, and Annie pressed herself back into the railing of the bed a little more.
“I don’t want to give you this,” the nurse said. “It’ll give you a headache once it wears off. But it’s your choice. Do you want me to give it to you, so you calm down? They just need to do some tests.”
If she and Johanna were going to get out of this, they couldn’t put her under. They couldn’t put her back under.
Annie shook her head.
The room was too white. The sheets were too white, the bed was too white, she looked down and she was wearing something white, and before she could even think about it, she’d struggled out of it.
“I’m not wearing that,” she said. “I don’t want anything white.”
“Go get her something else,” the first nurse said to one of the others.
The other nurse hesitated.
“Now,” the first nurse said firmly.
They came back with something powder blue. It was still too close to white, but Annie wrapped herself up in the sheet tightly. She was shaking so badly that they couldn’t find a vein, she jumped back from their hands every time they tried to hold her still.
“Just get her blood pressure,” the nurse said, exasperated.
Johanna was shouting curses at anyone who tried to come near her. Everyone near her bed was already bleeding. But Johanna couldn’t help, she was too busy fending off everyone around her, and Annie was so distracted thinking about what to do next that they got something on her arm when she wasn’t paying attention. She immediately ripped it off.
It was too loud. That was what was different. Where they’d been before, it hadn’t been like that. Not what Annie remembered. It had been silent when the three of them weren’t screaming. Here there were people talking, doors banging open, monitors beeping, it was too loud, too overwhelming, and her shoulders were creeping up towards her ears.
The door flew open again and she jumped, and then immediately was screaming for Finnick, flew off the bed and crashed into him, slamming them backwards into the wall, jumping up on him before she could stop herself. She knew it was a mistake to do it. That it was a mistake to act like that where everyone could see them, but she didn’t know when she’d get this again. When they’d take him away from her again.
She didn’t know if she was laughing or crying, and she couldn’t stop kissing him. He was shaking so badly. She held him a little tighter.
“What did they do to you?” she whispered. “How did they – I thought you got away, I thought that was why they came for me, but - ”
“I did,” he said. “I got away. We’re in Thirteen.”
Annie hesitated.
She hadn’t even known there was a real District Thirteen.
“We’re in Thirteen,” he said again. “They went and got you.”
“Why?”
“They had to.”
It wasn’t a good answer.
“Finnick,” she said into his shoulder, “I need to talk to you. They did something to me, I don’t want anyone else to know.”
She slowly slid down and they looked around. Everyone else was busy.
Johanna caught Annie’s eye, and before anyone could stop her, Johanna reached over and knocked over every machine within arm’s reach. The nurses swarmed her and Finnick grabbed Annie’s hand and pulled her back down the hallway, out of sight before anyone could notice. He pulled her into a closet, shut the door behind them. They were in darkness, it hadn’t been dark in so long, it hadn’t been dark once, and Annie felt a weight drop from her shoulders.
She stared at their feet, illuminated by the light coming under the doorway.
“Do I have to wear shoes here?” she asked.
“It’s a lot of metal grates.”
“I don’t care.” The calluses on her feet were gone by now, she was sure. The idea of the pain didn’t scare her. She wanted to hurt in a way that she could control.
“Then you don’t have to wear shoes.”
She nodded.
“Finnick,” she said, and she couldn’t say anything else. It was too much, she didn’t know anything about where she was, she didn’t know how she was supposed to live like this.
It was underground. She was still underground.
Annie sat down hard on the floor and pulled her knees into her chest. He knelt down in front of her.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked.
“We were going to have a baby.” Annie kicked at the grating. The only sounds were their breathing and the dull thunk of her toe hitting metal. There were footsteps in the hallway, probably people looking for them. She curled up even tighter and hid her face in her knees.
Finnick hadn’t wanted a baby. They’d talked about it, they knew they couldn’t have children. She knew he hadn’t wanted one, it had been an accident and she had no idea how it had even happened.
At least, that was what she kept telling herself.
“Were?”
“They took it away,” she said to her knees.
“Oh.”
Finnick’s fingers were under her chin, tugging it up. Annie couldn’t really see his face, the only light was coming from the crack underneath the door. She hadn’t even realized but she’d started to rock, back and forth, and she knew that this was about to spiral into something that she couldn’t control, and she didn’t have any of the things she normally used to calm her down. She didn’t have anything here, anything at all. She didn’t even have her clothes, she didn’t know what had happened to her clothes, and that was -
“Annie, look at me.”
Her eyes snapped to his.
“Do you want to try again?”
“Try what,” she said.
“Try to have another baby.”
“Do you?”
“What – of course I do, are you serious?”
“We can’t have children,” she said. “You know that.”
“Things are different here.”
Annie scoffed. “Things won’t ever be different. They brought me back so they can manipulate you, keep me away from you again.”
“They won’t do that.”
“You know they will.”
“They’re not going to separate us, Annie.” His voice was dangerous. “They won’t.”
She didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Not now.
Annie leaned forward and rested her forehead against his shoulder, and Finnick wrapped his arms around her.
She didn’t have anything she wanted to say. She knew she’d have to go back, they’d have to do tests, they’d poke and prod at her again, and she was shaking again, she could feel it.
“Hey,” he said into her hair. “Tell me.”
“I can’t go back in there,” she said. She was crying. She wished she could feel embarrassed, upset, anything at all, but all she could do was cry. “I can’t.”
“Then you won’t.”
“They said they had to do tests.”
“Come on,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet and gave her a hand up. She pulled the sheet back around herself. “I can show you where we’re going to stay.”
Annie was still crying. She scrubbed at her face. “Do they let us go outside?”
“Not really.”
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t stay here, I can’t be in a place like this.”
She’d had to say it. She had to, because she knew that she had to stay. She didn’t have a choice. They didn’t have a choice.
There was a knock on the door.
Annie turned and yanked the door open. “What?”
The nurse was standing there. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked.
Annie hesitated.
“I don’t remember,” she said. Finnick was silent next to her.
“You need to eat,” the nurse said.
“I’m not going back there.”
“Annie,” the nurse said. Annie reached for Finnick’s hand and grabbed it, tightly. He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “You don’t have to, we can go to your room and do everything there instead, but I thought it might be better if you do it in the hospital. Then you won’t have that brought into your room.”
Annie thought about it.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Aurelia,” the nurse said. “He can stay with you.”
Finnick’s grip tightened on hers.
He’d always been afraid of doctors. Terrified of needles.
“No,” she said. “I’ll go on my own.”
“Annie, you don’t - ”
“You’ll faint,” she said. “Crack your head open. You can wait for me at the door.”
If they tried to take her, they’d have to get her out the door. If Finnick was next to her, he might not be able to move fast enough, but by the door, they wouldn’t be able to get her out without him noticing, and he’d be able to stop them.
Annie sat as still as she could. She couldn’t stop shaking. They drew the curtains around her bed, and they looked at every inch of her, and she couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t stop shaking. She threw up as soon as they tried to take the sheet off her. Aurelia got her something else to wear.
When Annie’s breathing got too loud, too fast, Johanna started to talk. She was describing how ugly the hospital wing was, and Annie nearly laughed when Johanna moved on to talking about how bad the nurse was at finding a vein to take her blood. Aurelia did laugh.
“Almost done,” the doctor said.
Annie was crying. She didn’t want to be crying.
She heard Aurelia’s sharp intake of breath. Nobody said anything.
“Do you - ”
“I don’t remember,” Annie said. “I don’t remember anything.”
There was a long silence.
“I’d like to go now,” Annie said.
Aurelia passed her an enormous stack of sheets. None of them were white.
“The rooms are white,” she said. “You can hang these on the walls.”
“You’ll need something for - ”
“I won’t.”
“Annie,” Aurelia said softly. “Your shoulder will get infected.”
“It won’t.”
“With that type of - ”
“It hasn’t,” Annie said. “It won’t now. Do you have showers here?”
“Miss Cresta.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“With those types of injuries, it’s more than likely that - ”
“Do not say it,” she said. “He can hear us. Do not say it.”
The doctor and Aurelia looked at each other.
They gave her shots. More pill bottles than she could carry. Annie swallowed five pills that Aurelia placed in her hand without even looking at them.
“I’ll assign you a compartment,” the doctor said, “once you’re healthy enough to be released.”
Annie reached over and drew the curtain aside, shouted for Finnick. He was there in an instant.
“You said,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “that they wouldn’t separate us.”
“She needs to stay in the hospital,” the doctor said to Finnick.
“You talk to me,” Annie said. “I’m your patient. You talk to me, not him.”
“We don’t need to keep her here,” Aurelia said quietly. “Not if she doesn’t remember.”
“You can’t be released without supervision,” the doctor said.
“I’m staying with Finnick,” Annie said. “He’ll…”
She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t stomach it, saying that he’d supervise her.
“He’ll look after me,” she said.
“You’re unmarried,” the doctor said. “You wouldn’t be permitted to share a compartment.”
“We’re married,” Annie said immediately. It was easy. The doctor had told her exactly what she needed to say.
“And do you have any paperwork stating that?”
Annie stared. “How would either of us have gotten our…paperwork?”
It was a ridiculous question for the doctor to ask. Annie didn’t even have clothes. She had no idea what Finnick had with him, but it couldn’t be much. He’d taken barely anything to the Capitol with him.
The doctor sighed. “And if anyone asks?”
“It’ll hinder my recovery,” Annie said smoothly. “If I’m not with him.”
Aurelia looked impressed.
“I’d like to go now,” Annie said again.
Finnick looked at the three of them. Annie could see where this was heading if they didn’t let her go.
The doctor could clearly see it, too.
Annie took the stack of sheets from Aurelia, pushed herself to her feet, and they left.
They hung up the sheets on the walls. Annie didn’t like any of the colors. They were too muted, too dull, but they had to go up. Even seeing the stripes between the sheets where the white of the walls peeked through was too much.
“Do you think they have paint here?” she asked.
“Paint?”
“I want to paint the room.”
“I don’t think they’ll let you paint the room.”
“Finnick,” she said sharply. “Do not be naive about this.”
“I’m not being - ”
“You are. You’re being naive.” She was pacing. The room was too small, it was too small for her to get the energy out, to wind down. She wanted to run as far as she could.
“Explain it to me, then.”
She looked at him, eyes narrowed. He was being sincere.
“They need you for something,” she said. “They need you for something, and if they need you, then they need me. Everyone knows that. You need to be happy, so you don’t push back on them, on whatever they want, and for you to be happy, I have to be happy, and I’m not going to be happy until we paint the room.”
“They - ”
“We are currency,” she said. “We are priceless. That’s why they want you. Don’t think it’s because they like you, or they care about you, or they want to help us. They don’t give a shit about us.”
“Annie, you’re shaking.”
She was shaking. She was shaking so badly that she could barely stand.
“You can yell at me more later,” Finnick said. “After I go find paint.”
She stopped. “Really?”
“What color do you want?”
“Whatever’s bright,” she said. “But maybe blue.”
She missed home. She hadn’t been thinking about it, not really, because she didn’t remember what she’d been thinking about, but she missed how bright everything was there. The clothes, the houses. Her house, their house, with the rug her aunt wove with the brilliant oranges and reds, the yellow kitchen, the bedroom she’d decorated entirely in shades of blue.
“Then I’ll get blue.”
“Okay,” she said.
The anger wasn’t gone. It was still there, because he’d lied to her. He hadn’t told her the truth, he hadn’t told her anything, but she was so tired.
“Is there a light switch?” she asked.
He nodded.
Annie immediately threw back the covers, climbed into bed, and then shot right back up again. She grabbed the blankets off the bed and dragged them onto the floor, then curled up as tightly as she could manage.
“Will you get the light?” she asked.
Finnick bent down and kissed her forehead. “Want me to wake you up?”
She shook her head, pressed her forehead into the floor. She hadn’t brought a pillow with her. “You’ll come back?”
Her voice was shaking so badly. She was still shaking. She didn’t want to be that vulnerable.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I haven’t been sleeping well, either.”
“Too much?”
“Yeah.”
She caught him with a hand on the back of his neck, drew his head down to hers and kissed him again. She got lost in it, a little bit. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. She wanted to lose herself in him completely.
“You’ll come back,” she said against his lips. “You’ll come back to me.”
Annie slept for days. She barely dragged herself awake for long enough to eat and take the thousands of pills they’d given her. She hadn’t even taken a shower, she didn’t think she could stand up that long, and she wasn’t going to ask Finnick to help her. She didn’t want him to see.
Finnick managed to get the entire room painted while she was asleep. She had no idea how he did it. She was so tired that she barely managed to kiss him in thanks before she fell back asleep again.
She hadn’t slept. She knew that, she felt it in her body. She hadn’t slept, it had been too bright in the Capitol for her to really sleep, they’d never turned the lights off, and she was so exhausted that she didn’t think she’d ever wake up again.
Annie didn’t know if she wanted to.
She couldn’t sleep in the bed. It was too soft. She sank in too much. She tried, but she couldn’t. Finnick joined her on the floor, and it was almost fun. She wanted to talk to him, but she was too tired, so all she did was curl up against his side and fall asleep in his arms, and feel herself start to spiral out, out, out.
Annie was getting worse. She could feel it, she was getting worse. At home she had her routine. She had her things. She had what she’d learned to do to calm herself down, to make sure she had a good day. She had the sun and the sea and the sky, and here she didn’t have any of those things, and her body ached so badly.
“Do they have my shots here?” she asked.
“I’m sure they do.”
“Will you get some?”
They wouldn’t give them to Finnick, and Annie pushed herself to her feet and left the room for the first time in days.
Aurelia met her at the entrance to the hospital wing and pulled her into a small room. It looked like an interview room. Annie flinched before she could stop herself, and then collapsed into one of the chairs, hoping that Aurelia hadn’t noticed.
“What do you need?” Aurelia asked.
“I need my shots,” Annie said. She was rocking, back and forth, back and forth, and she tried to get it to stop but she couldn’t.
She could tell from the look on Aurelia’s face what the answer was.
“We can’t take medicine like that out of the hospital wing,” Aurelia said.
“But I need them,” Annie said slowly. “If I get too upset. I won’t be able to calm down otherwise. He needs to be able to give them to me.”
“He’ll have to bring you here.”
“I can’t go in there,” Annie said. “It will just make me worse.” Her voice was rising. “It’ll just make everything worse, he can’t move me when I get like that. It’ll last longer, I’ll get further under, it’ll get worse. I’ll break something. I could hurt someone. Is that what you all want?”
“Annie,” Aurelia said calmly. “I’m just a nurse. I can’t make decisions like that. Maybe your doctor can, I’ll talk to her.”
Annie crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair. “And if she says no?”
Aurelia looked over her shoulder. Annie could already see through the window that the hallway was empty.
“Then I’ll try and get them for you,” she said, “but if you use them, you’ll have to come up with a reason why you have them.”
Annie nodded. She could do that.
“They’ll think he stole them,” Aurelia said. “And you can’t steal things here.”
“What’ll - ”
“You just can’t,” Aurelia said. “Let me see your shoulder.”
Annie recoiled from her hand.
“It’ll get infected,” Aurelia said. “Let me see.”
Annie let her see.
“Not infected,” Annie said.
Aurelia redid the bandages. “I want to see you soon,” she said. “Those need to be changed more often. And you haven’t taken a shower, you reek.”
Annie was sure she did.
“Don’t look in the mirror,” Aurelia said. “Cover it up.”
Annie didn’t look in the mirror. She climbed into the shower and let the room fog up entirely, so she couldn’t see in the mirror when she got out, and spent what felt like hours in there, scrubbing and scrubbing until her skin was raw.
The bandage came off. She touched her shoulder and winced. She didn’t want to go back to Aurelia, but she knew she couldn’t leave it uncovered.
She’d have to ask Finnick. She didn’t want to.
“Finnick,” she said, sticking her head around the bathroom door. “I need help with my shoulder.”
He looked at her. He just looked at her.
“I don’t want you to look at anything else,” she said. “Just my shoulder.”
She didn’t even want him to see that.
Aurelia had given her more bandages, and she passed them to Finnick when he came into the bathroom. She’d pulled her clothes back on, even though she was still soaked, and only let the sleeve of her shirt drop down enough in the back that he could see her shoulder.
He didn’t say anything. Just took things as she passed them to him, and she felt him carefully rebandaging it.
“Done,” he said. There was something off about his voice. She whirled around and saw the tears in his eyes, how hard he was trying not to cry.
She immediately pulled him into her arms. “Sweetheart,” she said. “That was why I didn’t want you to see.”
“What did they do, Annie?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t remember.”
She didn’t remember anything.
Annie took a step back. She could feel the knots in her hair, pulling her down.
She hadn’t started to work on her hair yet. She hadn’t wanted to, it was too much, too overwhelming. It was horrible. It was so tangled, so matted. It had thinned out. She hated to even touch it, it felt like straw under her fingertips. She’d always hated how her hair felt when it was wet, it had sent her back into the arena, but now, under her fingers, it was almost comforting. She could lean into it. Into something familiar, into a fear coiling in her stomach that she knew how to handle.
Had known how to handle.
“Want help with your hair?” Finnick had seen the way she was twirling the ends in her fingertips.
“No,” she said sharply. “Don’t touch my hair.”
He took a step back from her. “I won’t,” he said. It wasn’t patronizing. Annie felt like he was patronizing her anyway, and she bristled.
“I mean it.”
“I know.” He looked at her hair again. “I’ll go see if I can find something for it, the water won’t be enough to get those out.”
She knew he was right.
Annie sat down on the bed and started trying to pick out one of the knots at the end with her fingernails. She’d cut her fingernails right away, the first time she woke up. There had been so much caked under them that she didn’t want to think about.
She didn’t know why she didn’t want him to touch her hair. She’d felt it in her, cold as ice, the second he’d mentioned it. She couldn’t stand to have anyone else’s hands in her hair, and she didn’t know why.
Annie wanted to chop it all off. She’d had long hair her entire life and she wanted to be done with it.
The door slid open and Finnick came back in, passed her a bottle. Annie turned it over and over in her hands, took the cap off and smelled it.
“Things even smell bad here,” she said.
It wasn’t what she used at home, but it would work. She soaked her palms with it, dumped some directly onto her hair. It got all over her clothes, all over the sheets. She didn’t care. They had so many sheets now.
She started untangling her hair, bit by bit. “I want to just cut it off,” she said, yanking hard on a strand in frustration. “Chop it all off.”
Finnick hesitated.
“What?” she asked, irritated.
“Don’t let it change you like that,” he said. “That was what you always used to tell me.”
It was a good point. Annie felt some of the rage that had been building inside her for days leech away.
She loved him. She loved him, and that was why it was so hard to be so angry at him.
“You lied to me,” she said. She slammed the bottle of whatever it was down onto the ground. “You lied to me, Finnick.”
“We’re doing this now?”
“Yes, we’re doing this now, and you’re lucky we didn’t do this sooner.” She was shaking again, but she didn’t know if she’d ever really stopped shaking. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me anything.”
“It wasn’t about trust, Annie.”
“Yes, it was.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So you knew,” she said slowly. “You knew that there was a chance they’d come for me. That they’d come for me, and they’d take me, and you didn’t even bother to tell me that. To warn me so I could be ready, or so I could run, or so that I could at least protect myself somehow.”
“What happened to Johanna?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me what happened to Johanna.”
Annie thought about it. “She was screaming,” she said finally. “They made her afraid of something. And she wouldn’t stop screaming.”
Johanna had been screaming. What Annie remembered, all of it, was Johanna screaming. Every flash, every snippet, every memory she had, Johanna had been screaming in the background.
It popped into her head. It wasn’t Johanna screaming. Her voice was hoarse, but she’d been talking, and she’d been telling Annie that –
Annie shoved it out of her head.
Johanna was the worst off. Annie had seen that. Johanna had looked so awful, and Annie still hadn’t seen herself, but she knew she didn’t look like that.
“If I had told you anything,” Finnick said, and he was clearly trying to rein in his temper, “then you’d be like Johanna is now.”
“You think this isn’t bad enough? You think that shit on my shoulder isn’t bad enough? You think the fact that I can’t even walk isn’t bad enough? You cut me out, Finnick. How am I supposed to have a life with you when you won’t tell me anything? You didn’t even tell me that this place existed, what was I supposed to think? That I’d die there, in the Capitol?”
“Annie, I was trying to protect you.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Do not. You didn’t protect me. What you did is made all of that shit I went through, everything they did to me, pointless. All of that was pointless, because I didn’t know anything, and they put me through it anyway.”
“I wanted to go back for you,” he said. His eyes were shining with tears. “I wanted to go back for you, I tried, but they wouldn’t take me.”
“You what?”
“I tried, Annie. I did everything I could.”
“Are you still suicidal?”
Finnick stopped short.
“Tell me right now,” she said. “That was the deal. You tell me if you’re suicidal.”
“Why do you - ”
“You’re not stupid,” she said. “You know what would’ve happened if you’d gone back for me. Are you still suicidal?”
There was a ringing silence.
“No,” he said finally. “Not now that you’re here.”
“Finnick, you cannot do this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You act like that, you’ll get us both killed. If you’re gone, they won’t have any use for me, and they’ll kill me too. Is that what you want?”
“They’re different, Annie. They wouldn’t do that.”
“You need to tell me,” she said. “You need to tell me those things, and you need to tell me everything, right now, because I don’t see how we’re coming back from this otherwise.”
The color drained from his face, and she realized what she’d said a minute too late.
“Sweetheart,” she said. “I’m not leaving you. Okay? I’m not leaving you. If I leave you, you’ll know. I’ll warn you. But you need to talk to me. You need to tell me these things.”
He nodded.
“Tell me now?”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”
Annie went back to trying to untangle the knots in her hair. Finnick knelt on the floor in front of where she was sitting on the bed. She knew it was so that he could look her in the eye. She traced the line of his jaw, pulled him up to kiss her.
“If you’re going to stay down there,” she said, passing him a pillow, “at least put that under your knees. You don’t need to punish yourself.”
He nodded.
He talked for a long time. Annie kept working on the mats in her hair, and all she did was listen. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to. He told her everything. Everything, and when he finished, his voice was almost hoarse.
“I almost wish I had something to tell you,” she said. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “After all of that.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“No,” she said. “Not besides what I told you.”
“Did they find anything when the doctor looked at you, or - ”
“No,” she said firmly. She looked down at her arms. “I think I put those there,” she said.
“Put what?”
“The scabs.”
Finnick looked at them, and she saw when it clicked, when he started counting them.
“The same number as your shorter beads.”
“Yes,” she said. “Thirty six. I was trying to count something. To calm down.”
Annie had picked at her arms so deeply that they were scabbing over. She remembered the feeling of the scabs under her fingertips. Remembered counting to thirty six, over and over, trying to breathe, and wishing she could put two hundred and fifty scabs on her arms, the same number of beads on her long strand, because thirty six was too short, thirty six wasn’t enough for her to calm down and she wanted to calm down so badly, but having enough of – something. Enough something, to know that she couldn’t. To stop herself.
“They want you to talk to a doctor,” he said.
“I don’t want to.”
“I can only hold them off for so long. They’re going to keep pushing.”
“I’ll talk to Aurelia.”
“So,” Aurelia said, the next day. They were back in the interview room. Annie was digging her thumbnail into the edge of the table, trying to pry off the plastic around the edges. “I heard you’ll talk to me.”
“I don’t have anything to talk about,” Annie said to the table. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Annie, with those types of injuries, something…” Aurelia took a deep breath. “Something awful happened to you. It’s better if you’re prepared for every outcome.”
“But I can’t remember it,” Annie said. “There’s no outcomes.”
“If you start remembering, it could be difficult.”
Annie scoffed.
“Difficult,” Aurelia said again. “And they wanted to make sure you had someone to talk to if that happened. Someone to help you through it.”
“Finnick will help me.”
“You want to tell me that you’d tell him what happened, even if you remembered?”
Annie was silent.
“Normally,” Aurelia said, “you’d meet with someone every day, or at least once a week. They’ve given me permission to meet with you instead, but I have to tell you that they want to put you on medication.”
“No.”
“It’s probably - ”
“It’s not for the best.”
“You do that,” Aurelia said softly.
“Do what?” Annie snapped.
“You’re tugging on your ears. You’ve done that every time I’ve seen you.”
Annie froze. She hadn’t realized she was doing it.
She always had before. She’d pulled on her earrings, relished in the pinch of pain when she tugged too hard. It calmed her down. Grounded her.
She ran her fingers along the shell of her ear, and she realized.
Her earrings were all gone. They were gone, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Annie slowly bent forward and rested her forehead on the table. She felt Aurelia’s hand on her good shoulder and held back a flinch.
At home, earrings were a rite of passage. Lobes when she was a baby. Second lobes when she started school. First additional one when she moved up into the second training class, when she was fourteen. Second and third, life milestones. Fourth and fifth, training milestones. The sixth when she turned sixteen.
Tenth when they picked her as her class volunteer.
She’d been so proud. Proud to be a volunteer. Proud to have ten extra earrings. Not a lot of people had ten extras by the time they were eighteen.
“Can you get me needles?” Annie asked the table.
Finnick knew how to do piercings. He’d given her one after her first week where she was present every day. Annie had thought that was a sufficient milestone to deserve one.
She’d get another one if she got married. She shoved it out of her head.
“That’s easy,” Aurelia said. “But I don’t know if…”
“What?” Annie looked up. Aurelia had a determined look on her face.
“I’ll get you what you need.”
The next day, when Annie met her, Aurelia passed her two bags. One with needles, disinfectant wipes. Another with small silver hoops.
“I hope they’re the right size,” Aurelia said.
Annie looked closer at the rings.
They were crude circles of wire. They weren’t earrings, they were clearly handmade, all of them, and before Annie could stop herself, she’d flung her arms around Aurelia.
“You’re being so kind to us,” she said into Aurelia’s shoulder. “Why are you being so kind to us?”
“I don’t want it to be all bad for you,” Aurelia whispered. “It’s not so bad here. You’ll get used to it.”
Annie didn’t believe that for a second.
She hated being underground. She knew that was why things felt so heavy. She wanted to see the sun so badly. She hated how everything was grey and white, and she’d had another screaming fight with Finnick the night before, because he’d told her that they wouldn’t let them go outside until Annie was better. It wasn’t him she’d been angry at, but he had been there.
You know I won’t get better, she’d screamed, not until we’re out of this fucking place. And I won’t get better anyway. I’ll never get better, I’ll never be good enough for them. Did you tell them that? Tell them that I’ll never be what they want? That they won’t be able to use me like they’re using you?
He’d torn into her for that. She knew it was because he wasn’t ready to hear it.
She passed Finnick the bag of needles as soon as they were back in the room after dinner. “Tonight?” she asked. “I’ll see which ones are still open.”
Most of them were. She’d only have to redo three of them.
She had no idea how long her earrings had been out for. She couldn’t remember anything.
Annie thought she should remember something. Some of her old earrings had had to be undone with pliers. She’d tried to take one out once, one of her older ones, and it had been so impossible that Mags had joked that they’d have to get the wirecutters.
Finnick had already laid everything out on the bed by the time she came out of the bathroom. She climbed up into his lap before he could say anything.
“Harder to get a good angle that way,” Finnick said. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
Annie leaned in and kissed him, slowly tightened her grip on his hair more and more until he sighed against her lips. “I’m sure you can manage,” she said, and shivered.
She’d always liked the feeling. He was fast with the needle, the pain splintered when he did it. Three at once, it would be a lot.
It was easy. The scars were there, all he had to do was find them.
“Deep breath in,” Finnick said.
Annie tried to take a deep breath in. It caught in her chest.
“Out,” he said, and the pinch in her ear, the sudden sharpness, was so overwhelming that she let out a shaky gasp.
It faded quickly. She felt better than she had in – she didn’t know. A long time.
She didn’t know how long they’d had her in the Capitol.
She could feel his hands working and she closed her eyes and sank into it, in the feeling of his hands on her. He hadn’t touched her, not really. She couldn’t blame him for it, she’d been recoiling any time anyone came too close to her. His fingers lingered on the rings she already had back in her ears.
She’d always felt a little silly asking for it, but she’d always loved the way his hands felt in her hair, on her scalp, on her ears.
“Annie,” he said softly, and his hands dropped to her hips. Annie didn’t realize that she’d been rocking down against him until he stilled them. “Are you sure?”
She hadn’t even noticed the heat coiling in her.
“Do the other two,” she said. Her voice was breathy.
“You’ll have to hold still,” he said. “Think you can do that?”
“I can,” she said.
She was already trembling from the enormity of how it all felt. By the time Finnick had finished with all three and gotten the earrings back in her ears, she had already pressed closer to him, shifted to straddle his thigh.
Finnick leaned over to place the needles on the nightstand, and before he’d straightened back up, she was already leaning over, kissing her way up his neck, dragging him back to her. She was grinding down against his thigh, she couldn’t stop herself. Finnick was laughing.
She didn’t remember the last time she’d seen him laugh.
Annie was so close. She was on the edge, she didn’t think she even needed him to touch her. This might be enough, because he was so carefully stroking over her ears, they were throbbing, and she hadn’t felt this good in so, so long.
“You don’t need me to touch you, do you?” He almost sounded awed. Annie shook her head and dragged him back in to kiss her. It was so sloppy, she could barely focus enough to kiss him. She ducked her head and started kissing along the line of his jaw, and he exhaled shakily, then yanked on one of the rings in her ears, hard.
She came almost instantly. He was laughing at her again, and she pushed his face away, burying her face in his shoulder and riding it out, still grinding down against his thigh. She could feel the blood slowly sliding down her ear and she shivered.
Annie finally looked up and pulled him back in to kiss her. She was panting, she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her ears were so sore.
“What can I - ”
He shook his head.
“Do you need me to move?”
“No, it’s fine.”
She gave him a look.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Your ear’s really bleeding.”
“And whose fault do you think that is?”
“You liked it,” he said, grabbing one of the tissues off the bedside table and starting to dab away the blood.
Annie realized, suddenly, that she could feel her fingers. She wiggled them.
“I can feel my fingers,” she said.
“Back in your body?”
“A little.”
“Good.”
Annie wound her arms around his neck. “What did they do?” she asked.
Finnick was trying to hide something from her. She’d seen something frightening in its expanse in his eyes, and he knew that she’d seen it.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She leaned in and kissed him. “I know,” she said against his lips. “I don’t want to either, but I need to know.”
“Do you?”
“You know I do.” His breathing was already speeding up. “What happened?”
“I can’t look at you,” he said. “I can’t look at you and tell you.”
It was a lot more than she’d expected.
She slid off his lap and shifted to press herself up against his side, leaned her head on his shoulder.
Finnick didn’t say anything for a long time. Annie started counting her scabs, carefully tapping over each one of them. She wondered if Aurelia would be able to get her some beads, and then immediately dismissed the idea. Nobody she’d seen in Thirteen had anything like that. Finnick would have to make her something, and she’d have to count the scabs for now. They still hadn’t healed, but that was because she was picking at them in her sleep. They’d wake up with her blood all over the sheets.
“I told people,” Finnick said.
“Told them what?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Told them what, Finnick?”
“They needed a distraction,” he said. “While they went to get you. It was – I don’t really understand how it works, but Katniss has been making these videos, I have too, and Beetee’s been broadcasting them somehow. To the districts.”
“Why?”
Finnick shrugged.
“Okay,” she said. “So they had you make one?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I know it doesn’t help,” she said. “To talk about it. But it will help me understand.”
Finnick had been taking such good care of her since she’d come to Thirteen. She knew him well enough to see it, that he was throwing himself into it, because everything that had happened was so bad that he couldn’t stand to do anything other than think about her. It was what he’d always done after he came home from the Capitol. He’d usually calm down eventually, but after going back into the arena, after everything that had happened, after them taking her, she thought he might try to bury what had happened forever. It would kill him if he did that.
“Katniss isn’t really a talker,” Finnick said. Annie nodded. She’d gotten that impression from what little she’d seen of Katniss. “We needed to keep talking for as long as we could, and she ran out of things to talk about.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Everything.”
Annie gasped. She didn’t mean to.
“I just - ”
“Oh, Finnick, why?”
“You know why.”
Annie did know why.
“How many people heard it?”
“I don’t know. They played it here. People saw it here, and it went to the districts, the Capitol.”
“That’s thousands of people,” she choked out. “All those people - ”
“They know.” He sounded resigned to it, and it scared her, a little bit. “What I am.”
“I can’t believe they did that to you,” Annie said slowly.
She wanted to kill them. She’d never wanted to kill anyone besides the president before. It tore through her.
“They didn’t do anything to me, Annie, I volunteered.”
“They shouldn’t have asked you,” she said. “They shouldn’t have ever given you that choice, they should’ve had you read a grocery list. A maintenance manual. Anything but that.”
“They needed something that would get people’s attention.”
Annie stared at her knees. She didn’t want to ask, but she knew she had to.
“Do you regret it?”
“I don’t regret helping them bring you back. And they couldn’t have done it any other way.”
“Yes they could’ve.”
“No,” he said. “Not really.”
“Finnick,” she said. She took a deep breath. She tried to rein it in, keep it from coming out as a shout. “I don’t want you to give them anything else. I don’t want you to give up anything else, not like that, not unless you want to.”
“Annie,” he said, and she could hear how forced his calm was, too, “I don’t think you understand.”
“I do.”
“We aren’t from here,” he said. “We have to give them something, or what do you think they’ll do to us?”
They’d send them home. They’d throw them out, send them back, and they’d be picked up in a second and taken back to the Capitol, and they’d never get out. The Capitol wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
The fear that slammed into her, even just thinking about it, was so overwhelming that she could barely breathe.
She leaned a little more heavily into Finnick’s side. Counted the scabs on her arms until the pressure in her chest loosened.
“I don’t like that they’re using you,” she said.
“I got that.”
Annie exhaled sharply. Tried to shove out the anger.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said. “Not tonight.”
“Then we need to stop talking about this.”
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll stop talking about it.”
Annie snapped awake in the middle of the night. She didn’t know why, she couldn’t feel why, and then she looked up.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was shaking Finnick awake. “Finnick,” she said. Her voice was thready with fear. She hated how it sounded. “There’s someone in the hallway.”
He was on his feet in an instant, but Annie was already scrambling backwards, dragging the blankets with her, back into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it. She could still see it. She could still see the eyes staring down on her, and she wondered, just for a second, that if she smashed her head into the side of the sink hard enough, if it would knock the sight out of her head.
There was a knock on the bathroom door and she flinched.
“Just me,” Finnick said, and Annie threw the door open and dragged him inside, locking it behind him.
“We’re sleeping in here,” she said. It was nearly a shout.
Finnick shrugged. “The floor is the same anywhere.”
Annie exhaled shakily. “You’re not upset?”
“No. I hung up one of the sheets over the door, though, so if you want to come back out - ”
Annie was already shaking her head. “We’re sleeping in here.”
She didn’t know if the main door to their room locked. She didn’t think it did.
“Someone could come in,” she said.
“I can sleep in front of the door,” Finnick said. “If you want me to.”
“Stop making so much sense,” Annie said sharply.
Finnick looked at her for a long moment. He just looked at her, and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her, so she laid back down and shut her eyes, and after what felt like an eternity, she felt him settle next to her.
He still put himself between her and the door.
“There wasn’t anyone in the hallway, was there?” Annie asked into the darkness of the bathroom.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Finnick said.
Annie could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks.
“The doctor wants you to take some tests,” Aurelia said the next day.
“No.”
“Annie, all they want is to make sure that you’re healthy.”
“I have a brand on my shoulder,” Annie said.
Aurelia fell silent.
“I think it’s a little ridiculous to talk about me being healthy,” Annie said. “I’d like it if you didn’t mention it again.”
“All right,” Aurelia said softly. “Will you do the tests?”
Annie thought about it.
“How do they know what tests to do?” she asked.
“We’re doing everything,” Aurelia said. “Because you don’t remember.”
Annie looked at her. Her eyes narrowed.
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “You think I’m lying.”
“I believe you,” Aurelia said. “Your doctor doesn’t.”
“I’ve seen that doctor once.”
“She has to look over my notes.”
“I don’t remember,” Annie said. “I don’t remember, and if it helps, after my district partner got decapitated in front of me, I didn’t even remember his name until six months later.”
Aurelia looked down at the table.
“The doctor can figure out how to work with that,” Annie said, “and if she can’t, she can get me another doctor.”
“Will you do the tests?”
“What happens if I don’t?”
Aurelia hesitated.
Annie had heard rumors. Rumors about what happened to people like her, if they lived in the Capitol or in some of the other districts. How they’d take them, and they’d take away everything they had, and they’d give them doctors that made all their decisions for them. They’d lock them up and control every part of them. Every part of their lives. Every part of their being.
She wondered if they had that in Thirteen.
“I’ll do them,” she said. “But I don’t want the results. If you treat me for something, I don’t want to know what it is.”
“What if it’s something you could give your husband?”
Annie stared at her.
“Annie,” Aurelia said. Her face was so kind. “I know you don’t want to think about it, but - ”
Annie shoved back her chair and left, slamming the door behind her.
When Finnick came back to the room looking for her, she ran to him and hugged him, sending both of them crashing into the door when they overbalanced.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s - ”
“They want to do tests,” she said into his shoulder.
“Do you want to do them here?”
“No,” she said. “But I want you to come with me. You can wait by the door.”
“I can stay with you.”
“There’s probably a lot of blood tests.”
“I can stay with you, Annie.”
“You’ll faint.”
“And then you can laugh at me and feel better.”
She snorted.
“I just gave you three piercings,” he said. “You think I’ll faint at a needle?”
“Yes,” she said. “Piercings are different.”
“Says who?”
“Says you, Finnick, you’ve told me that at least three times.” She was laughing now, really laughing. He was laughing too.
They couldn’t stop laughing. Every time she tried to stop, she’d look at him, and it’d set them off again.
She had no idea what they were really laughing at.
“Do you want to go now?” he asked. She was still laughing.
“Why not,” she said.
As soon as they got past the room she and Aurelia met in, Annie froze. She could see the rows of the beds, how white everything was. She couldn’t stand it.
She wouldn’t move. She didn’t think she could.
Aurelia caught sight of them and hurried over. “Annie,” she said, “I didn’t think you’d - ”
“Can we do the tests now?”
“Sure,” Aurelia said. “I’ll find your doctor.”
“I want to be in Johanna’s room.”
“Then we’ll put you in Johanna’s room.”
Annie gritted her teeth, let go of Finnick’s hand, and followed Aurelia.
“Why’s she here?” Johanna asked suspiciously, as soon as the door to her room opened. “What are you doing to her?”
“Tests,” Annie said.
Johanna looked at her, eyes narrowed. “What kind of tests?”
Annie shrugged.
They dragged another bed and more medical equipment into the room, drew the curtains around the bed. Annie just stared at it. She didn’t want to get on it, and eventually all she could do was count down in her head and force herself up and onto it. She heard Finnick and Johanna talking and tried to listen to what they were saying, but their voices just turned into a blur. She heard Johanna laugh harshly.
They took so many vials of blood Annie thought she might faint. She was glad that Finnick couldn’t see it. They poked at her, looked at her again. All she did was stare at the ceiling.
“We’ll get the results back soon,” Aurelia said. “If you want to wait.”
“I don’t want to know them,” Annie said shortly. “I told you that.”
Aurelia jerked her head towards the doctor, who was standing slightly too close and scribbling something down on a clipboard.
“You can tell me tomorrow,” Annie said, pushing herself to her feet. She nearly fell. The curtains were trapping her. She grabbed onto the edge of the bed and shoved the curtains open. “If there’s anything to tell.”
Johanna’s head whipped around.
“Why is Johanna still here?” Annie asked.
“I don’t have a nice nurse,” Johanna said, rolling her eyes.
“She won’t get better here,” Annie said. “It’s like where we were.”
Everyone stopped talking.
Everyone. The nurses, the doctors, even Finnick and Johanna. They stopped talking, and they all stared at Annie.
“You need to let her go,” Annie said, and then she turned on her heel and left.
They didn’t let Johanna go.
“Johanna needs to stay,” Aurelia said. Annie was pacing around the interview room. “They wanted you to stay in the hospital, too.”
“She can come stay with us.”
“We’re already pushing it with the two of you.”
“We’re married,” Annie said, waving a hand.
“Got your test results,” Aurelia said.
“Anything interesting?”
Aurelia wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No,” she said. “Nothing interesting.”
“You’re not telling me the truth, Aurelia.” Annie kept her voice low.
“It’s almost nothing,” Aurelia said. “It’s barely detectable.”
Annie collapsed into a chair.
Aurelia pulled out a bottle of pills and peeled off the label. She pushed them across the table to Annie. “Twice a day for two weeks,” she said.
“What do I tell him?”
“Nothing,” Aurelia said, starting to tear up the label. “If you tell him what those are, he’ll know.”
“I don’t know.”
“Annie, do you still want to do this?”
“I’m not doing anything,” Annie said, her voice rising. “I don’t remember anything.”
“But you’re smarter than most people give you credit for, and you’ve got a lot of injuries. You can’t tell me you haven’t put something together.”
“I haven’t looked,” Annie said sharply. “I don’t look in the mirror, like you told me to, and I don’t look down.”
“You knew about the brand on your shoulder.”
Annie didn’t know how she knew about the brand on her shoulder. It had been covered with bandages almost the entire time. It was on her back, she couldn’t see it unless she looked in a mirror, and she hadn’t looked in a mirror.
She’d known it was there, and she didn’t remember how she knew that.
Aurelia must have seen how upset Annie was, because she got up and left with her scraps of label, and in a second, Finnick was there, next to her.
“I can’t remember anything,” Annie said to the table. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
“It’s what you do,” he said. “You block it out. It’s what you’ve always done.”
It was true. It didn’t help.
Annie got in the shower that night and she didn’t look down.
She wouldn’t look down. She wouldn’t look at herself, not until all the bruises were gone and the cuts were healed. She could feel them. She could feel all the scabs pinching her, the soreness of the bruises. The aches of something else she didn’t want to think about. She knew if she looked down, it would be too much.
Her hair was still tangled. She’d been working on the knots every night, for as long as she could, and it seemed like there were still thousands. She could barely reach the ones that were left, they were on the back of her head, and it hurt her arms if she worked at them for too long.
She’d have to ask Finnick to help, and since she didn’t even remember why she hadn’t wanted him to help in the first place, she didn’t know what would happen if something went wrong.
“Will you help me with my hair?” she asked.
He nodded.
She sat in front of him on the bed and felt him slowly start working at the knots. She was so tense, waiting for something to happen, something to feel wrong, something to send her under or set her off, but all she felt was his hands in her hair.
“We didn’t fight,” she said. “Not today.”
“Is that an accomplishment?”
“Now it is,” she said.
“There’s still time.”
She snorted.
“They’re ruining us,” she said. Her eyes were closing. “They’re ruining us and they’re ruining our relationship.”
“Do you want to have a wedding?”
“Mmm. Someday. On the beach, maybe.”
“Now?”
Her eyes snapped open. “Now, now?”
“Soon.”
“What do they want from us?”
“They want to film it.”
Annie thought about it. She hated the idea on the surface, but having a wedding. Actually having a wedding, it was something that they’d never thought they’d have.
She kept telling people they were married. They’d done things quietly, and nobody knew. It didn’t feel like they were married. What Annie really wanted was to scream it from the rooftops, that Finnick was her husband, that Finnick was hers.
“Yes,” she said. “I’d like that, even if they film it.” She tipped her head back to look at him. “Would you be all right with that?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Finnick,” she said. “If you don’t want a wedding like that, we won’t do it. You can tell them I’m the one who said no. You can tell them I’m still too sick.”
It wouldn’t be a lie. Annie spent most of her time in the room. The only people she talked to were Finnick and Aurelia, she wouldn’t talk to anyone else. Even just being around other people made her recoil, made her want to hide. She spent most of the time they were even in the hallway clinging onto Finnick, because everything was still so overwhelming and she knew she was so close to losing it completely. She could barely make it from the room where she met Aurelia back to where they stayed without collapsing.
“Tell them I’m still too sick,” she said. “That I need more time. And then we’ll figure it out.”
Finnick leaned down and kissed her. She sighed into it, reached up to pull him closer to her with a hand on the back of his neck.
It was easy for her to lose herself in it. It was easy for her to lose herself in anything, because all she was doing was trying not to think.
“Annie, what are you hiding from me?”
“What?” She pulled away, breathless.
“You heard me.”
“We’re not fighting today,” she said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”
Finnick didn’t look convinced, but he let it go. She knew he didn’t want to fight with her any more than she wanted to fight with him.
“We have to work this out,” she said. “I can’t stand it if we can’t. I don’t want him to win like that.”
Finnick looked at her like she’d said something remarkable.
“What?”
“I think we should do it. I think we should have the wedding.”
“I’ll still need time,” she said. “I can’t – all those people looking at me. It’ll be too loud. I can’t do it, not yet.”
“I don’t want him to win, either. If he sees us, if he sees you happy, he’ll know he hasn’t won.”
Finnick shook her awake that night, and she hit him before she’d even realized what was happening. Annie scrambled backwards, away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Annie, you’re bleeding.”
“What?”
“You’re bleeding,” he said. She could hear the fear in his voice.
She looked down.
“We should probably go take care of that,” she said lightly.
Aurelia wasn’t on shift, and Annie nearly turned and walked straight back out of the hospital, but her knees buckled and Finnick had to catch her.
“Go,” she said. “Go stand by the door.”
“Annie, I - ”
“I don’t want you to see,” she said sharply.
“No.”
“Finnick, I’m not going to have a screaming fight with you in the middle of this hospital.”
“You can’t walk,” he said. “I’m not waiting by the door.”
“I want to be with Johanna,” Annie said as soon as a doctor came up to her. “I want to be in her room.”
The doctor looked at her.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll put your bed in her room.”
Johanna’s eyes widened when she saw them stagger in. “Crazy, what happened?”
“They never sewed me up,” Annie said.
“No shit,” Johanna said.
“It wasn’t very smart of them.”
“Well, taking out a kidney wasn’t very smart of them, either.”
Finnick was an awful shade of grey.
“Miss Cresta,” the doctor said.
“Why do people keep calling me that?” Annie asked Johanna. She wouldn’t look at the doctor.
“At least your last name isn’t as stupid as Mason,” Johanna said.
“Miss Cresta, you need to hold still.”
Annie twisted away from the needle.
“You know,” Johanna said conversationally, “I think they took your spleen, too.”
“My what?”
“Your spleen.”
“Why would anyone want my spleen?”
“Why would anyone want your kidney,” Johanna said. “You’re not exactly prime transplant material.”
Annie snorted. She leaned a little more heavily into Finnick’s side, pressed her face into his shoulder. She could feel the doctor and the nurses’ hands on her, trying to hold her still.
“Are there any other…” The doctor cleared his throat. “Surgeries, that we should know about, and monitor for complications?”
Annie didn’t say anything.
Finnick didn’t say anything.
Johanna didn’t say anything.
The silence stretched on, and on, and on.
“Miss Cresta, we just - ”
“I’d like to leave now,” Annie said. “Are you done?”
“You’ll have to stay the night,” one of the nurses said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“No, I won’t,” Annie said. Her fingernails were digging into her palms. She wondered if she’d make them bleed, too.
“You’re free to go,” the doctor said, “if you come back in the morning for a transfusion.”
“Will Aurelia be here?”
“Nice nurse,” Johanna said, nodding. “Why the fuck didn’t I get a nice nurse?”
“You’re not very nice,” Annie said, and Johanna threw a pillow at her.
“She’ll be here,” the doctor said. “First thing tomorrow, you’re back here.”
“We’ll be here,” Finnick said before Annie could argue it any further, and then he was pulling her up and off the bed, out the door before anyone could say anything else.
They didn’t speak until they were back in the room.
“You didn’t tell them,” Finnick said.
“I told you I didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“What if it makes you sick, Annie? What if you start bleeding like that again, or something worse?”
“I won’t,” she said sharply. “I tore my scabs open, that’s all.”
“Can I see?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want you to.”
“Why?”
Annie paused. The rage that had been building up inside her flattened off.
“All it will do is hurt you,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you like that. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. They’re just using me to hurt you, and if you see, then they’ll still win. You’ll still be hurt.”
Most days, she felt like all she’d ever done was hurt him. It hadn’t been her fault. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault, but all she’d done was hurt him, and sometimes, sometimes she thought he’d be better off without her.
She’d used to think that. Aurelia had told her what he’d been like without her. It should’ve worried her, but all Annie could feel was lucky. Lucky that he loved her so much.
“Don’t you think this hurts me now? That you won’t tell me anything? That you won’t let me in at all?”
“I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I know things and I don’t know how I know them. I couldn’t tell you anything that would make sense, nothing makes sense. Everything they did was so pointless. I didn’t know anything.” She took a deep breath. Tried to stamp out the anger again. “I don’t want you to see. I need you to be okay with that.”
Finnick didn’t like it. She could tell he didn’t like it, but there wasn’t another answer she could give.
“I’ll try the medication,” Annie said to Aurelia the next day. They were back in the interview room, and Annie was getting the promised transfusion. She hadn’t stopped shaking. It had taken Aurelia three tries to even get the needle in her arm, and they were both ignoring it.
“What changed your mind?” Aurelia asked.
“The wedding,” Annie said.
“I heard about that.”
“I need to be able to handle it. I can’t handle it now, and I need something that will get me through it. I’ll stop the medication after.”
“Annie, you need time.”
“I want Snow to see he hasn’t won,” Annie said. “The longer he goes without seeing me, the more he thinks he’s won.”
“You don’t need to prove a point,” Aurelia said. “You don’t need to prove anything.”
“I do.”
“You need time,” Aurelia said again. “You need time to heal.”
“I want to have a wedding,” Annie said. “I didn’t get one before. We want to have one.”
“Your doctor isn’t going to go for it.”
“Good thing I’m not marrying her, then,” Annie said.
Aurelia promised to talk to the doctor. Normally Annie waited in the room where she and Aurelia met until Finnick got there, because she didn’t like the way people stared at her when she was alone, but as soon as Aurelia was gone, she poked her head out the door.
Johanna was sitting alone. Annie didn’t like the way she looked like that. Johanna wasn’t supposed to be slumped over that way. Johanna wasn’t supposed to be so small.
Annie locked the door of the hospital room behind her. Johanna didn’t look up.
“Johanna,” she said.
“Crazy,” Johanna said to her knees.
Annie sat down on the floor. There weren’t any chairs in the room. There wasn’t really anything. She wondered what they thought Johanna would do.
“I’m trying that medication,” Annie said. The disgust was clear in her voice. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to hold it back in front of Aurelia.
“Seriously?”
“I can’t even walk down the hallway,” Annie said. Her breath was catching in her chest. “I can’t. I can’t stand up in front of people and say anything the way I am now, I can’t even be around people at all.”
“You could wait,” Johanna said.
“Everyone keeps telling me that,” Annie said. “The only good thing this place can give me is a wedding. Why the fuck would I wait?”
“Not bad,” Johanna said. “Still got a brain in your head.”
“Always had a brain in my head.”
“And you keep telling people you don’t remember anything anyway.”
“I don’t,” Annie said.
Johanna scoffed. “You can pull that on other people, fine. Don’t fucking try it with me. The least we can do is be honest with each other.”
“I am being honest,” Annie said.
“No, you’re not.”
“I don’t remember,” Annie said, her voice rising. “I don’t remember anything. Don’t you think I’d rather remember something than be like this?”
“You take one look at yourself in the mirror,” Johanna said, “and you’ll know.”
Annie wanted Johanna to shout at her. Wanted her to get as angry as Annie felt, but Johanna just sounded so defeated.
“I don’t think I will,” Annie said.
“The only reason everyone hasn’t figured it out is because they’re too stupid,” Johanna said.
“They’re - ”
“Don’t start,” Johanna said sharply. “They’re idiots here. They’ve been underground so long they forgot what it’s like out there. It’s no surprise to me your moron of a doctor hasn’t put it together.”
Annie started tracing the lines between the tiles on the floor, carefully, over and over. She tried to think about how it felt under her fingertips, but even that felt wrong. It wasn’t as rough as she wanted it to be.
“If I think about it,” she said slowly, “I’ll figure it out, and if I figure it out, Finnick will know and then he’ll ask me what happened, and he can’t know. He can’t ever know.”
“That’s a good plan,” Johanna said sarcastically.
“He can’t know, Johanna.”
“You’re going to tank yourself like that to protect him?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing all these years?”
Johanna stared at her.
“The only reason they took me,” Annie said, “the only reason they did any of that to me, was because of him. I’m not telling him. I’m not giving them the satisfaction of breaking him like that, because what happened to me will break him, Johanna. And if I don’t want to tell him, then I can’t think about it, and I can’t tell that to anyone here, because they won’t understand, but I thought you might.”
“Yeah,” Johanna said. “I get it. But he’s not stupid.” Johanna’s eyes were piercing. “The only reason he hasn’t figured it out is because he’s in denial.”
“I know.”
She heard him at night. He’d cry, he’d cry for hours, and even with the shower running, even with him as far away from the bathroom door as he could possibly get, she still heard it.
She’d tried to get in, once. The bathroom door had been locked.
He’d never locked a door on her like that before.
“What are you going to do when he figures it out?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I don’t think he ever will,” Annie said. “It’s not about being smart. It’s about what he can handle, and the way he is right now, he can’t handle it. And it’s not going to get better as long as we’re here. Not really. He’ll pretend, it’ll be easier for him to pretend now that I’m here, especially if he keeps looking after me the way he has been. It’s what they know about him. They think he’s a hero, it makes sense he’d take care of me the way he does. He’ll hide that way.”
“You’re not going to be able to hide what happened forever, Crazy.”
Annie dug her nails into the space between the tiles.
“You know we can all hear you fighting.”
Annie hadn’t known that.
“You haven’t had the big fight yet,” Johanna said.
“Oh?”
“Do you know where he’s going during the day?”
Annie didn’t know. She spent most of the day asleep. She saw Aurelia, she ate, and Finnick was always with her when she was awake, but she didn’t know where he went when she wasn’t.
“It’ll be a doozy,” Johanna said. “I can’t wait. It’s the most exciting shit happening around here.”
“Fuck off,” Annie said.
Johanna was laughing, and when she realized it, she immediately stopped. She looked so stunned.
“I know,” Annie said. “I forgot I could laugh, too.”
“So,” Annie said that night. “Johanna said I should ask you where you’re going during the day.”
Finnick froze.
“Finnick,” she said, “I’d like it if you were honest with me about this.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Tell me what it is, then?”
“I’m training,” he said. “During the day.”
“That’s fine,” Annie said immediately. It made sense. Of course he would. He didn’t feel safe, he didn’t feel like he could protect her. He’d do what he could to change that, it made sense that he’d train.
“It’s not like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Not like at home. I’m training to be a soldier.”
“You’re what?”
“They want me to go back in. To fight.”
Annie exploded.
She understood why Johanna had said it would be the big fight. She was screaming at him, she wasn’t really angry at him, but she was, because sometimes he could just be so – stupid. So stupid, and so reckless, and he wouldn’t stop, he’d get himself killed that way. And he was screaming back at her, that she didn’t understand, that she’d never understand, that he’d felt so fucking useless, and that he wasn’t going to be like that anymore.
“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think you’re going back there, you’ve done enough! You’re done, Finnick!”
“You’re going to tell me whether I’m done or not? Are you serious?”
“Yes, yes I am, because you clearly can’t stop yourself, and I’m fucking sick of it! You can’t stop yourself and this is just another way you’re going to pull some of your heroic self-sacrificial bullshit, and I’m sick of it!”
“You think I can just sit here and do nothing after what they did to you? Nobody even knows what they did to you!”
“Yes, you do! Everyone knows, everyone fucking knows, and nobody will say it! Nobody has the fucking courage to say it to my face! Why am I the one who has to tell people when I don’t remember a goddamn thing, when it’s already obvious? Can’t you all fucking use your heads for one second and figure it out? Why do I have to hold everyone’s goddamn hand through this?”
“Annie, why won’t you just tell me?”
“I can’t,” she said. Her voice cracked. “I can’t. I can’t say it,” and then she was sobbing. She didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to be crying at all, but she couldn’t stop, and Finnick had to catch her, because she was crying so hard she couldn’t stay upright, couldn’t do anything except sob into her hands.
“I can’t say it,” she sobbed. “I can’t say it, if I say it, it’ll be real, and it can’t be real. I don’t want it to be real.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it, Annie. You don’t ever have to say it.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t, I can’t.”
It was all she kept repeating for hours.
Finnick ignored his schedule the next day. Annie didn’t go to see Aurelia. They didn’t leave the room, and Annie didn’t think she stopped crying once. She ran out of tears and she was still crying, she couldn’t stop. She’d make herself sick if she didn’t stop, but she couldn’t stop, and the entire time, Finnick held her.
She’d never liked being held before. It had always made her feel claustrophobic. Almost trapped. It didn’t matter who was doing the holding. She thought that being in the Capitol would’ve made it worse, but instead she needed Finnick to hold her so badly that she couldn’t stand it.
That was what he’d been doing. He’d held her all night, and he hadn’t let her go.
“You said,” she said into his shoulder, “that they wouldn’t separate us. They’re separating us again.”
“No,” he said. “They’re not. I’ll come back.”
“You’re arrogant,” she said. “You might not, and you know that. I don’t want to be separated from you.”
“I’ll come back,” he said. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think I’d come back to you.”
“You’ve been lucky,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I can do this, Annie.”
“What if you can’t?”
“I can.”
“Don’t do this because you want to get revenge,” she said. “I don’t want you to do that.”
Finnick was silent, and she knew she’d read him right.
“I don’t need revenge,” she said. “I need us to work things out. That’s what I need. I need us to stop fighting and fix this.”
“Okay,” he said. “What do we need to do?”
They didn’t sleep. They stayed up all night talking. They came up with new rules, because their old rules didn’t make sense anymore, not with the way they were now. Annie told him she didn’t want him to cry in the bathroom, to come to her instead. Finnick told her that she never had to tell him what happened, but she couldn’t ask him not to be angry about it, and she agreed.
“I’d like it if you stopped yelling at me so much,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Finnick had never been able to talk about what he wanted. The only times he could even hint at it had been when he was as sure as he could be that nobody else could hear them. Telling her what he just had was enormous for him, she knew that. She could feel him shaking next to her.
“Finnick,” she said. “I’m not leaving you. I want you to stop worrying about that. I want to marry you.”
“I want to marry you, too,” he said, and then he started to cry.
It was out of relief, she knew that. That was why he was crying. He was still so afraid that she wouldn’t love him.
She knew why, or she thought she did. He’d been the first to kill someone in the Quell. She’d seen his face when it happened, and she’d known what it had done to him. She was sure that he thought, now that she was reminded of who he thought he was, that she wouldn’t want to be with him anymore.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t care about any of it. I can’t remember what it’s like not to love you. I’ll love you no matter what.”
He froze next to her, and she realized what she’d said.
“He can’t hear us,” she said. “He can’t hear us here.” It didn’t do anything about the cold fear curdling in her stomach. She’d say it again anyway.
Annie shifted so he could see her, caught his chin in her hand so he’d look her in the eyes when she said it. She was shaking now, too. “I love you,” she said. “I’m so glad I can finally tell you.”
“I love you,” Finnick said. It tumbled out of him. He was still crying. “I love you, Annie, I love you so much, I’m so sorry I never told you.”
Annie pulled him into her arms. All he could say was that he loved her, over and over, and all she could do was say it back, and finally, she felt something click into place inside her.
“Aurelia,” she said firmly the next day, “I don’t know what to think.”
“What about?”
“Johanna says it’s because you’re all stupid,” Annie said bluntly. “That’s why you haven’t figured out what happened to me. But you’re not like the others.”
She hadn’t needed long to know that about her. Aurelia was the only person who had given her a choice in so long. Maybe it was because she was kind, or maybe it was because she was more observant than the rest, or maybe it was because she was just good at her job, but Annie couldn’t believe that Aurelia wouldn’t have put it together.
“Why haven’t you told me what happened to me?” Annie asked.
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear it.”
Annie nodded.
She wasn’t as angry as she had been. She didn’t think she was feeling anything like she had been. All she felt was almost giddy, because it had been three years and finally, finally Finnick had told her he loved her, and she’d thought she’d never get that. She thought she’d never hear it out loud from him, and she had. It was the first thing he’d told her when she woke up that morning. She knew that if she was lucky, it was the first thing she’d hear every morning for the rest of her life.
“You’re lucky,” she said, “that he’s here. If he wasn’t here, I don’t know what I’d be like.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened, Annie?”
“No.”
“I knew right away,” Aurelia said. She cleared her throat. “Things like that don’t happen here. Not often. But when they trained me, they told me what to look for.” She slid her hand across the table for Annie’s and before Annie could think about it, she’d jumped back, out of the way.
“There were eight of them,” Annie said.
“What?”
Annie put her head down on her crossed arms.
She didn’t move. She stayed like that, and she drifted, and eventually she felt Finnick’s hands on her and she realized she was sobbing, again. She was so tired of crying.
She didn’t know what she was crying over. She didn’t know, and it made her so frustrated, so angry, that it just made her cry harder.
They stayed until she’d cried herself out, and then they went back to the room.
Annie could feel it looming. She couldn’t say it, but she could feel it, looming over her in the back of her head. She’d know something soon.
(It wasn’t that she’d know something. It was that it would confirm what she already knew. The more she was back in her body, the more she could pinpoint what hurt. What ached. There were too many clues, and it was like Aurelia said. Annie was smarter than people gave her credit for.)
There had been eight of them. She couldn’t remember what they’d done, but she could guess.
She caught Finnick’s arm before he could move away from her, once he’d gotten her on the bed. “This is what I know,” she said. “I know that they…” She swallowed. “I knew about the brand on my shoulder. I know they took our baby, and I know they cut me open.” Her voice was deadly calm. “I’m not guessing about anything else, and that’ll have to be enough. I don’t want our relationship to be ruined by this.”
She saw Finnick make the decision before he even said anything.
“It won’t be,” he said. “We’ll move on.”
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll move on.”
They did.