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Haymitch stumbled into the dining area, just barely catching himself on the ladder before he dove face first into the dining table. His eyes lighted on the woman sat primly on the couch, a cup of tea in her hand looking to all the world like things weren’t turning to shit around them. He might have even fallen for it if the baby pink wig on her head hadn’t gone slightly askew in the turmoil.
Effie Trinket had been trouble from the second that she bought passage aboard the Mockingjay a week ago. Maybe even before that. The woman had been making all kinds of demands and complaining about the state of his ship like nothing was ever good enough. If she hadn’t been paying him so much coin - more than double the going rate - he’d have kicked her off days ago.
The crew had started giving her a wide berth when she started going on about people’s table manners. Well, except for Katniss and Jo who had started eating with their hands just to make a point.
“You,” he said accusingly, pointing a finger at her and narrowing his eyes as she continued sipping her tea. “I thought you said you were from the Capitol.”
She put the tea cup - empty and entirely for show - to one side and stood up to face him. “I am,” she said, her chin lifted defiantly and her blue eyes lighting with indignation.
“Yeah, then why do they have Peacekeepers chasing my ship, princess?” he shot back at her, taking a step forward so he could properly loom over the tiny woman. The room shook as Beetee and Wiress narrowly avoided some kind of projectile and she stumbled against him, finally losing her composure.
When the room stopped shaking and she took a step back, her hand remained on his arm to steady herself. The look on her face was no less defiant, though her smile had turned wheedling. “Yes, well, I may have taken something with me that they are eager to have returned,” she admitted carefully.
Haymitch glowered down at her. “You mean you stole from the Capitol,” he surmised from what she wasn’t saying. “You brought stolen property onto my ship.”
The woman matched him scowl for scowl. “Do not act so high and mighty, Captain Abernathy,” she hissed at him. “I specifically chose your ship because you had a reputation for engaging in some less savoury activities.”
He was about to point out that there was a difference between smuggling supplies to rim worlds that were bought and paid for and stealing right from under the Capitol’s nose when Jo’s voice buzzed through the intercom. “Haymitch, there’s a naked boy in cargo,” his mechanic said dryly.
Haymitch glared down at the woman. “You better start explaining, princess, before I let the Peacekeepers have you,” he said darkly, taking hold of her arm. “Me and my crew don’t take kindly to human trafficking.”
She gasped at the firm grip on her arm, but wrenched free of him to shoot her own accusing glare in his direction. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” she spat at him before darting out of the room, presumably to go see to her unsavoury cargo.
“Haymitch,” came Beetee’s voice next, connecting from the cockpit. “We think we can lose them but we’re going to have to drop some cargo to lose weight.”
“Drop the extra fuel,” he answered immediately.
“That’ll barely get us to Six,” Beetee replied through the intercom.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. Just like they’d figured it out a hundred times before. “Eleven needs those supplies.”
Before Beetee could try to argue some more another voice cut through on the intercom. “Boss, we need you down here,” said Finnick.
He didn’t wait to find out what the new emergency was, moving quickly through the ship until he arrived at the hold right behind the Trinket woman. His eyes immediately landed on the naked teenager with his hands around the throat of his sniper. Finnick and Gale were already on him, trying to drag the kid off of Katniss, but even the two of them seemed no match for the boy.
“Peeta!” screamed Trinket as she ran towards the fray. Instinct made Haymitch grab for her - his need to protect even when it was a pain in the ass woman that did his head in - but she shrugged out of his grasp with surprising ease. “Nightlock! Nightlock! Nightlock!”
At the third repetition of Nightlock the boy went still and his body became a deadweight. As soon as he stopped fighting them, Gale and Finnick fell back on their asses and the three of them collapsed in a pile of limbs.
Prim, their little medic, was immediately at her sister’s side administering care. Trinket had crouched down next to the boy's, gently petting the naked boy’s head like he hadn’t just gone and attacked half his crew.
“Woman,” Haymitch growled as he stalked over to her, “you have some serious explaining to do.”