Querencia | Finnick Odair

Twenty One

Our Team are sharpshooters. And we are good. There are Jackson, Leeg 1, and Leeg 2, making up the female front, Boggs, Holmes, and Mitchell the male. The two are unparalleled shooters, able to blow the dust off one's shoes from fifty meters. They help me with my long-range shooting and different guns. There are sniper rifles that are my favourite long-range firearms. Best used from a high point, but precise even above 500 metres when calculated correctly.

The evenings are spent with Theresa, Gloss, and Finnick, always visiting Johanna before going to bed, and sometimes Peeta, who is getting better at differentiating reality and fake ones.

It is the day before deployment when Plutarch informs us what our true mission is. Propaganda. Filming us blow shit up. There is collective discontent from everybody, even the District 13 soldiers. Gloss is watching me, while I am watching Katniss who is surprisingly quiet. She notices me watching, I raise my eyebrows.

"But it's not all pretend, is it? That'd be an utter waste of talent."

Later that day, Beetee calls me down to the weaponry.

"I thought it only fair to give you a special toy too, since both Katniss and Finnick got their specialty weapons."

He moves to the side and on a table laid out are weapons of all different kinds. Katanas, throwing knives, swords, and a bow.

"One of the swords is for Gloss, but I thought you were good with all of these. The knives reattach to the belt at the press of a button, the katana fits within the special vest that is sitting next to the table. As would the sword."

I pick up the vest that at first look is not special at all, but there is a certain reinforcement around the waist and two slits at the back, insides of them double lined and reinforced to not pose a weak link should I get hit while there is no weapon inside. He also hands me a first aid pack with all kinds of useful salves, pastes, and bandages.

"I...thank you Beetee."

"Be careful out there. I think we could need you when all of this is over."

Effie and Haymitch come by the dinner hall to say goodbye. Effie in grey and tearful will always be unusual to me.

..............

The morning we ship out is a tearful one, Gloss having to promise Theresa to never let me out of his sight. I hide my face in Finnicks shirt for the entire hovercraft ride, trying to convince myself that Theresa will be fine, no matter what. The ride is surprisingly short, leading to a transportation hub in District Twelve. Well, what's left of it anyways.

The trains are cargo trains, filled to the brink with soldiers in the same grey uniform we all are wearing. Mine was loaded with a few more weapons than the others. One katana peeks slightly over one shoulder, the bow currently clasped to the shoulder holster, arrows over the other shoulder, knives sitting around my waist as if through magic. Some magnetism apparently.

The journey is exhausting, not the one-day travel with the luxury trains but several days, with short stops to restock, and to pee. The men have resorted to just opening the train car slightly, yelling to make sure the ones next to them are closed and just peeing during the drive. The women...well, a bucket was an emergency solution, thrown out of the cart right after. We share the cart with another squad, taking turns sleeping, because not all of us can lie down at the same time. We invent games with the pebbles digging into our back, someone draws a target at the far wall and I teach how to throw knives. After four days, we arrive outside the Capitol tunnels and start the six-hour trek inside, following a glowing green line that marks the safe passage inside. We arrived at the all too familiar train station that had cost hundreds of lives to secure. There will never be a day in my life that I would like this place.