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To say it's been an eventful forty-eight hours would be an understatement. I died, apparently. And I nearly died. And then I nearly died again. This is the stuff of my nightmares, though the many methods of my near-deaths are refreshingly original. Electric shock, nerve-damaging mist, rabid monkey muttations. The Gamemakers have really pulled out all the stops this year. And those are only some of the tricks designed to shorten the lifespans of we twenty-four lucky tributes.
It was the electric shock that killed me. Or we think it was an electric shock. I don't remember any of it, which is actually something of a relief. I like to think that when I eventually die here for good, my mind will fade to black and there will be no pain. Now there is a dull aching in my chest. My heart keeps skipping strangely, making me feel like I can't properly catch my breath. Add this to the aching, itching scabs left by the mist, and the various wounds left by the monkeys and it might almost have been a relief if Finnick hadn't revived me.
Katniss and I are keeping watch on the beach. We are both reduced to our underwear, the strange blue jumpsuits we wore on entering the arena proving less than useless. It's too hot to be uncomfortable about our near nudity. I've stopped even being self-conscious about my prosthetic. And I have become accomplished at taking no notice of her body. It's a surprise to me that, despite imminent death and pain coursing throughout my body, it's still far too easy to get preoccupied by her slender, athletic frame. We're all covered in various scabs and wounds, tinted green by the medicine Haymitch sent us. But in the dim light, all I see is contours, smooth curves, shadowed dips that should be explored. Even like this, which must be Katniss at her worst, she is utterly beautiful.
I have been trying to convince her that, whatever she and Haymitch might have agreed, she needs to win this contest. She needs to survive. Not me. I have given her the locket, carefully calculated to remind her of everything – everyone – she will leave behind if she dies. It's a morbid and a cruel thing, and I'm not particularly proud of myself. But this is a means to an ends. And she needs to understand.
"No one really needs me," I say, speaking the truth. My goodbyes have been said, and no one expects to see me again. The most I could hope is that Katniss might miss me, for a time, before she finds she can take precisely the same cold comfort I have provided from Gale. And perhaps, with him, it wouldn't be cold.
There is a long pause. She's struggling with something, I can see it in the flickering muscle of her jaw. I hadn't meant to sound self-pitying, but I find myself waiting for her to smack some sense into me, or come out with the perfect counter and outdo me at my own game. This game that we seem to constantly be playing. Who is more important. Who deserves to live the longest. Who is needed the most, and by whom.
No one really needs me.
"I do," she whispers. She swallows. She won't meet my eye. "I need you."
It's so obviously a lie I'm tempted to laugh in her face. But it's the kind of lie that just makes me very sad. She's saying what she thinks I want to hear. Her arsenal against me is flattery, and I'm only disappointed that after the last year she doesn't know me better.
There are so many arguments against her that it's almost difficult to pick just one.
Before I can say anything at all, her lips are pressed against mine again. This is a cruel new piece of manipulation, one I would have thought too dirty for her too attempt. I don't kiss her back. I stay entirely still, though everything within me screams to make the most of this. Who knows if this will be the last time?
There are subtleties to Katniss' kissing. There are kisses where she holds her breath, and kisses where she'll sigh into me. Simple pecks were commonplace during the Hunger Games, but as we got to know each other and grew more comfortable, she would slowly slide her lips along mine. Her kisses would linger. And sometimes she would pepper me with kisses, if she was happy or teasing (or pretending). She would hardly ever touch me, though I buried my hands in her hair and pulled her close. Her hands would only ever rest primly on my shoulders.
It is knowing this detail, this variety, that makes me surprised that this kiss is entirely new. It is … warm. She is warm against my lips. Warm and soft as she presses into me. I feel the flicker of her eyelash against my cheek, and see her eyes close and open again. She is looking at me, but I don't think she's calculating my reaction. Her fingers creep to the nape of my neck, and she grazes at my scalp with her short, bitten nails. Breathing soft and slow through her nose, her lips become leisurely against mine. They draw me out, teasing and coaxing all at once.
I don't want this. I don't want to know how good she has become at pretending to be in love with me.
Each time I try to talk my way out of this embrace, she is ready with her own retort. She doesn't need to speak a word to keep me silent. Her kisses cut off every avenue of escape, until I have to ask myself: Why is she trying so hard?
Shortly after this there are no more thoughts. There are only our bodies, working their way together again. Her arms and legs wrapped around me, and mine around her. Were this her bed in the carriage or back in the Capitol, our hands might slip between us and slide into the private clefts that we know so well by now. But here on this warm beach, that will surely be the site of at least one of our deaths, my hands smooth only up her back and hers only twine in my hair. These long, slow kisses are more intimate than any time I have worked her to orgasm. I feel her lips form my name, but never hear the word, and I return the favour. We murmur our kisses for an eternity.
All at once there's a blinding flash, and Katniss is gone. Or rather, her lips have vanished from mine.
Staring into the dark I can't even make her out. Then the sky splits and a second flash of lightning illuminates her bright white, like a ghost. In that split second I capture the memory of her, like a photograph. Her lips bruised and parted, eyes wide with the pupils dilated, and her forehead is utterly clear of the stress and worry lines that I thought were now ingrained on its surface.
I lean in one more time and kiss her. This time, when I whisper her name, I think she hears it. When she pulls away, she's smiling. And it looks real.
It looks so real.
"I can't sleep any more," says Finnick behind me. Were this any other time I might jump apart from her, like we'd been caught. It would look good for the cameras. Star-crossed lovers caught in a private moment – I can almost hear the indulgent chuckle of Claudius Templesmith providing the commentary. But it really feels like we're not pretending any more. It's a dangerous feeling. It's like not caring whether you die. With this feeling warm and snug inside me, I feel I have every right to sit on this beach kissing the woman I love while I still can. "One of you should rest."
I can't imagine sleeping now.
Perhaps Finnick has noticed he's interrupted something. He sounds amused when he adds, "Or both of you. I can watch alone."
If we go and lie down together, I know our chaste kisses will turn into more. We will end up a sweaty, sticky, uncomfortable mess. And there's something sordid about it that I can't bear just now. I am too scared she will retreat once more into her indifferent self, that her sad look will return as she watches me buck into her hands, and I will never have this warm strong woman back. Now I have held this Katniss, I don't want to have to settle for the woman who wants only release and sleep. And I don't trust her to carry on wanting me after all that has passed before.
"It's too dangerous." My voice sounds strange, like it's coming from someone else. I realise Katniss' fingers are still playing over the nape of my neck. "I'm not tired. You lie down, Katniss."
My hands run down her arms. My lips twitch into a smile as my thumbs catch briefly on the straps of her bra. Underwear. Something I've not encountered before, as Katniss sleeps in nother or next-to nothing. A memory flashes through my mind, my brothers talking in hushed voices about taking off a girl's bra with one hand. Gideon, the eldest, saying he could do it without even taking her shirt off. No one else believed him.
I take her hands in mine and we stand to walk back up the beach to the make-shift shelter Finnick cobbled together. Johanna and Beetie at least appear to be sound asleep. Katniss sits a little away from them. I glance over my shoulder. Finnick is down by the shore watching the lightning. But his presence reminds me his are not the only eyes that could be watching. I wonder how many cameras are trained on us at this moment. The thought makes me sigh.
Katniss pulls gently at my wrist. How I would love to lie beside her, just for a moment, and see if that warm Katniss can be drawn back out. I shake my head just slightly. She raises my hand to her lips, kissing the inside of my wrist in a way that makes me ache for her. It's almost more than I can stand, and I see hope light up in her eyes when I kneel beside her. But as much as I want her wrapped safe in my arms, to hide her away from the rest of the world, I cannot shake the knowledge of prying eyes. Our moments – these moments, the ones where she is really mine – should be private. But the Capitol has taken that, too.
The locket is suddenly heavy round my neck. I remove it, and slide it over her head, pressing it to her chest. My fingers note, with familiarity, the firm swell of her breast. But my hand slips lower, resting in many ways more intimately on her belly. I think of my lie, which may or may not save her life. I think of how badly I want it, one day, to be true. Even though it can never happen, because of all those prying eyes and the malice they intend. One or both of us will soon be dead.
"You're going to make a great mother, you know," I say before I can force the words back inside of me. But they are out, and I see something like betrayal in her eyes.
There is a strange, cruel poetic justice in her thinking that my kisses were a false manipulation. She should know I'm not that good a liar.
I can't stand to see that look, to think it might be the last I see, as I never know which moment will be the last. So I lean down for one last kiss. Relief and desire and the twisted feeling that none of this is fair flood me as she answers with that same coursing warmth. It's a wrench to pull away, as she is whispering my name once more. But her eyelids are heavy, and Finnick isn't safe keeping watch alone.
"Sleep well, Katniss," I tell her. But I think she is already asleep.