I promise this is the only chapter that's OC-centric. The rest of Part 4 is entirely Annie with Finnick and Cashmere.

Mags and Finnick wait in the Justice Building.

On her way out, Annie cries, loudly and showily. She and Donn use this excuse to leave the stage early. They head for the Victors' Village.

Ever so casually, Rudder ambles around on stage while he waits. He pauses in front of Brine. "Ready?"

"For?" Brine snorts. "Finnick to win another Hunger Games? I didn't think he could get any more insufferable. Why do you ask?"

Rudder raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. He edges another step or two closer to the microphone.

Finnick and Mags are escorted onto the train, Finnick holding Mags' elbow solicitously. He casts a mischievous look at the nearest gun pointed at him, winks at the helmeted face he can't see. "Let's get this show on the road." He doesn't look back.

The hoots of the train signal the tributes' departure. The Peacekeepers rest their guns on their shoulders, and the crowd starts to disperse.

Speaking into the microphone, Rudder asks those who have ties to Mags to remain, as a sort of vigil, until the train is out of earshot. Octavius, who was wheeling himself toward the ramp, stops.

In the front, the waiting men and women shift unconsciously from foot to foot. They've been instructed to wait until the word is given, but they chafe for action. Putting in time at the academy may get you food, but it does nothing for your hungry family. It only puts into your head the idea that you're the equal of any Peacekeeper you meet, in a fair fight. If only the fight were fair.

Surreptitiously, these Careers eye the nether regions of the stage, where the hidden stockpile of weapons lies.

The fight is about to become fair.

In the middle of the crowd, Sander Reel, once Sander Odair, and his wife Virginia Reel, curl their lips in disgust. Rudder's request is obviously code for the academy Mags indoctrinated all these years, the one that lured away their son. Wanting nothing to do with this vigil, they start looking for a hasty exit. But with Virginia's crutches, it's tricky to navigate in the crowd, and so they're still in the forum when the first shot is fired.

Pearleye is not. Standing in the very back, she slipped off the first moment the Peacekeepers' attention was distracted. Throughout the district, her followers are doing the same.

When the sharp reports of gunfire begin, she's already speeding away in a car, racing toward her new headquarters. One advantage of doing this today is that everyone is gathered into one of the reaping locations, and the key rebels have been able to get to their destinations without hindrance.

Now they're bringing down outbound communications all through the district, while they divert inbound communications so Pearleye can make her announcement.

Seating herself at her desk, she feels the weight of responsibility settling in on her shoulders, there to stay.

Her fingers flip through the cards in front of her, as she seeks calm. Her assistants scurry around her, taking their places and pressing "on" switches. When she next opens her mouth, District Four will no longer be part of Panem.

Pearleye raises her head and looks straight ahead. "Camera."

"About time!" Virginia shouts when Mayor Pearleye's face fades from the television. Throughout the district, the same and similar cries are going up.

"A declaration of war? And secession?" Sander stares in shock at his wife, while the whole family speaks at once.

"Did I hear right—we have a new government? With an old mayor in charge and a council with the power to depose her if she turns into another tyrant?" Cora grabs her sister by the arm. The family's gathered at Cora's place, the nearest to the reaping forum since Sander and Virginia moved away ten years ago to start a new life, where no one could link them to their infamous son.

"And the Career academy's been a militia this whole time?" That's Buck, Cora's grown son, the only one of the family to have put in any time at all at the academy, and that not much. "I had no idea."

No one did. Once Finnick came along, the academy was a banned topic. Like Finnick himself, since the day Sander ceased to be an Odair.

"So we've got a military." Sander thinks out loud. "Maybe we've got a chance."

"Those shelters the mayor mentioned digging," Buck says, hesitantly. "That means..." He doesn't want to finish his sentence.

Sander and Virginia have to nod, reluctantly. "Bombs."

"Are they sure we can do this?" Cora wonders. "I'm all for it, of course," she says quickly, and unneccessarily, "but remember last time?

"And I didn't find that speech very inspiring," Virginia seconds her sister's doubts. "Pretty flat—are they going to be able to get enough support from the young crowd?"

"I thought it was great," Sander defends. "No, it wasn't electrifying, but it didn't sound like the hotheads were in charge this time. I want to know that level-headed people decided this, and boring people have made the plans."

"Besides," Buck says sarcastically, "inspiring young speechmaker who gets the young crowd riled up is busy right now, on a train getting his manicure done."

Then he glances quickly at Virginia and Sander, to see if that kind of remark is allowed now, or if the ten-year ban is still in force. Buck, only a few months older than his cousin and growing up in the same apartment, took Finnick's defection hard.

Silently, Sander exchanges a look with his wife, and they let it slide.

"And what about the other districts?" Virginia adds, after a minute. "Is District Four going to stand alone?"

"Four," Cora corrects her sister, "we're not allowed to say 'district' any more."

"Of course." Virginia shakes herself. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"We'd better hope everyone does everything they can," Sander says. It's what he's wanted all his life, but he wasn't expecting it to come now, here, like this. "For us, I guess that means shelter digging. We need to go, dig as much as we can before the bombers come." It's all happening too fast to process.

"Not me," Buck contradicts. "The mayor said everyone who attended the academy should report for militia duty." He stands up, ready to report.

"They meant the ones who had weapons training!" his mother cries. "Not you!"

"All you did was learn what plants not to eat," Virginia adds. "You were only there for a few weeks. It's not like you're a Career!"

"And if that's what they tell me, then I'll see you at the shelters," Buck answers. "But I'm going to report in first and find out. And I think 'Career' is going to have to stop being a dirty word, if they're the ones who are going to save us all."

Another moment of silence while they contemplate how the only Career in the district who'd rather win two Hunger Games than fight back is related to them.

"And what about me?" Virginia looks down at her braces, her crutches. "I can't dig."

"You'll find something," Cora encourages her.

Sander wants to say something encouraging too, but she just made him realize that they're not going to be together.

First bombers, then Buck associating with Careers, now Virginia going her separate way. Sander wants the Capitol lying in its own ashes, but he wonders what the cost of victory will be.

"Rudder, Rudder!" It's Felix, Donn's twelve-year-old grandson, sprinting down the street to meet Rudder. "Grampa says you gotta come quickly! The Village is under attack!"

Under attack? There's an old married couple, a couple of grandkids, and the mad girl. Everyone else is off at war. Why would the enemy care about the Village? Rudder's just on his way there to do his nightly briefing with Donn—trade an update on the Games for an update on the war.

But because it's Donn, Rudder starts to sprint. He only has the opportunity to commandeer the aid of two soldiers on the way.

Even just past midnight, the streets are crowded, chaotic, full of shouting. The commotion grows as Rudder nears the Village. Donn's right: something is happening. Rudder's neck prickles.

"One at each gate," he orders when they reach the Village, then heads straight for Annie's house himself. Donn and Felix have been staying with her while the Games are on.

"Finnick disappeared from the arena, they're coming for Annie as a hostage to get him back, we need to get her out of here," Donn gasps out, all in one breath.

Rudder wants to demand how Donn knows all this, but he hears the first shot of gunfire and knows there's no time. The Peacekeepers are here.

"Tell her to come. I'll take her."

Donn shakes his head, frantic, almost panicked. "She took a bunch of sedatives after the jabb—there's no time to explain. She's out. I can't wake her. I can't move her, not with my back."

In his head, Rudder silently curses, then sets emotion aside. They'll have to evacuate her, then.

"If you and Foam can hold the gates," Rudder tells Donn, "I can get her out over the side."

"Of course you can," Donn says with a ghost of an admiring smile. "We'll do it. Go. Take her south." Then, as Rudder's speeding past him, he makes a gesture with three of his fingers that Rudder doesn't grasp, but there's no time to go back and ask.

Annie doesn't wake, only moans a bit, when Rudder shakes her none too gently. Without a second to waste, he hoists her over his shoulder. He barely registers the texture of fur under his hands as he secures her with the length of rope he always carries on him.

The machine gun fire is getting closer. He can hear Donn shouting. Front door, or window?

Making a snap decision, Rudder hauls her out the second floor window and down the trellis Annie built for just this purpose.

He can't hear Donn any more, but the Peacekeepers are inside the house. Rudder's one house away from the Village wall, but he can't take the straight route, because he needs to stay out of sight.

Sprinting past an empty house, keeping his head as low as he can and still run, Rudder hears a Peacekeeper coming up behind. Whipping around the corner, he ducks as fast as he can, but not fast enough.

"Freeze!"

Another Peacekeeper is coming up the narrow space between the two houses. The only way out for Rudder from here is straight ahead, through the line of fire.

They need her alive, Rudder remembers.

He goes for it.

Just as he's half a step past the danger zone, his eardrums almost implode from the fire close at hand. He keeps going.

He has no choice. He heads for the only escape route he has, a path carved decades ago into the Village wall, made to look like weathering. He trained for it on an exact replica at the academy. He can scale it in his sleep. Annie's no heavier than many a pack he's carried.

It's just a question of whether he has the time.

Rudder starts climbing. Every second turns into an hour. He isn't challenged. The fire close at hand has stopped. Someone had his back.

Then he's over and down, thankful for the darkness as he races away from the Village.

Now what? Who has an indoor root cellar who can be trusted? They're not common, but families that can afford to stockpile food in Four do. The inner circle, the ones who know the war's coming, have been encouraging this behavior.

The sky lights up behind Rudder, and he pushes himself even harder. He hasn't heard any explosions, so it must be fire. Maybe they're trying to smoke Annie out.

Octavius' nephew Nestor answers his door, his wife Mell at his side. Hobbled by arthritis, he's not in the fighting, and she's in charge of organizing the neighborhood watch.

"Rudder!"

Rudder begins untying the knots around Annie's back even as he steps inside. She's still unconscious. "Don't say my name, or hers," he warns. Outbound communications are supposedly jammed in Four, but he's not gambling any more on that than he has to. "I need a place to hide her. The Capitol is hunting her."

Mell's already moving to the root cellar. "We can drag the couch over it once she's in."

"Do you have pencil and paper?" Rudder asks.

Nestor blinks, then scrounges them up. Mell is in the back of the house unlocking the cellar door.

Rudder scribbles for a second, then shows it to Nestor. His lips move while he squints at the paper in the lamplight. Code name Sandpiper.

"Got it?" Rudder asks, and then he destroys the paper. "I'll send someone as soon I have a way out for her. Don't trust anyone asking for her by any other name."

Mell helps Rudder lower Annie through the trap door and into the cellar next to the potatoes and turnips. "We'll keep her safe."

With that assurance, Rudder has to be content. He has too many responsibilities. Tonight, Four is scheduled to try to seize the naval ships off the coast. He's not directly involved in that effort, but he's been moving troops to the shore, to be prepared for the fallout come morning, whatever the outcome.

But now he has to divert some of them to deal with the Peacekeepers that are now suddenly in the city. The rebels had mostly managed to push the fighting to the outskirts and are now trying to secure the borders, but they don't have enough control to prevent sudden focused incursions like this.

And as soon as he's done all of that, he needs to figure out what to do with Sandpiper.

Grace's back and arms ache and ache. Instead of gutting fish, since the war started she's been relocating crates of fish, stockpiling them somewhere more secure. Diver and the boys are home from digging bunkers. The kids are only four and five, too young for heavy-duty digging, but they help carry buckets of dirt, fetch supplies, and pitch in wherever a hand is needed.

Tonight, the whole family is hunkered down inside the house, trying to ignore the sounds of shouting and shooting from outside that are all too common these days. It's been a week, and Diver reports that they just barely have the first underground shelters ready for emergencies. Not enough room to hold the whole population, and the Peacekeepers haven't wholly been driven out.

The fact that they've been mostly driven back is shocking enough. They had absolute power for so long, and now there's a citizen militia patrolling the streets instead?

Determined to shut out the terrifying noises, Grace and Diver cuddle the boys in bed between them with reassurances, and tighten the pillows around their ears.

An earth-shattering crash wakes them from a sound sleep. Blinding light fills the house.

"Where is Annie Cresta?" a harsh voice demands.

Grace blinks as she tries to sort out a cacophony of sensory impressions. Donny shaking on her lap. A helmeted Peacekeeper who just knocked down the door. Diver, always slow to wake, disoriented in bed behind her.

"Where is Annie Cresta!" Three Peacekeepers spill in behind the first as reinforcements. They start shining their lights into dark corners and upending the furniture, while the first advances on the bed.

Grace swallows, trying to get saliva into her mouth. "I don't know," she croaks. Miles is crying, and Diver's shushing him.

"Is she here?" This Peacekeeper seems to have only one mode of communication, and that's shouting.

Together, Grace and Diver shake their heads. "No. No."

"Where would she go to hide?"

Grace can't take her eyes off the barrel of his gun. "She never leaves the house. If she's not there, I don't know where she would be."

"I don't believe you. She's been seen visiting you."

Her throat is dry. "Only once or twice, a long time ago. I don't know where she is."

"Get off the bed." The Peacekeeper jerks his weapon commandingly, and all four of them scramble off instantly.

They stand with their backs pressed to the wall, Grace holding Donny, and Diver Miles, while the Peacekeepers drag the bed away. The only thing under it is a wooden train.

Annie carved it.

The nearest Peacekeeper tosses it to one of his compatriots near the door. Miles starts to sob and reach for it, but Diver holds him tighter, and just says, "Sssh, sssh, sssh," over and over again, like his sanity depends on it.

The train goes out the door with the rest of their belongings. Then the bed. The house is bare now, and the Peacekeepers are checking for hidden compartments in the walls and especially the floor.

One of them comes out of the tiny room that contains only a toilet. "Nothing. You couldn't hide a cat in here."

Grace has recovered enough to experience relief that she doesn't know where her sister is, and a smidgen of guilt at the fear that they may kill her because she doesn't know.

The fear spikes when one of the Peacekeepers seizes her by the arm. "You're coming in for questioning. The rest of you stay here."

Looking into Diver's eyes, gone suddenly wide, makes it even harder to be brave. "I'll be back," she promises in the steadiest voice she can command. Diver has to hold onto the kids to keep them from running after her. "Mommy will be back."

They're just going to ask you some questions, Grace tells herself as she leaves the house. They'll figure out you don't know anything. They have lie detectors.

This will all be over soon. Maybe she'll even wake up. The sounds of the fighting outside must be giving her nightmares.

She and her captor don't get far before they're confronted by three armed soldiers shining lights in their faces.

"Where are you taking that woman?" the woman in charge demands.

Grace and her captor peer at the uniforms in the moonlight. Blue.

He tenses. "None of your business."

Grace tries to wrench out of his grasp and run past the line of militia to safety, but even flinching at the sudden light, he keeps his grip on her.

"That's Grace Marshall," one of the men says. "Annie Cresta's sister." Grace doesn't recognize his voice in the dark, and she doesn't know whether to thank him or hate him for identifying her.

"Ah." The woman in charge again. "Then we'll take her."

Acting quickly, the Peacekeeper shoves Grace in front of him.

"Nope," she says confidently. "If we shoot you both, then you're dead and you never learn anything from her. If you let her go, you don't learn anything, but at least you're not dead."

Grace can guess the Peacekeeper is cursing himself for leaving his backups at her house. Now he can find out what it's like to be outnumbered. She just hopes the other woman is bluffing.

"Now come on," she says. "The odds aren't in your favor today."

"You know it's only a matter of time before we find her," he says with bravado.

"That's as may be, but you'll let this one go, and we'll let you go. I'll give you until the count of five to think about it."

On the count of four, his hold slackens enough for Grace to make her mad dash forward. The line of soldiers closes around her, and she doubles over, gasping and trying not to cry.

"Are you okay?" One of the militiamen, who's been silent until now, comes around to speak to her, but doesn't touch her. "Can you get home? Do you have a home to go to?"

"I hope so," Grace chokes. "Is she okay? Do you know?"

"We don't know." Grace knows this voice by now. This woman's in charge and knows what she's doing. "But they don't seem to have her. Let's get you home. My name's Elspa, by the way."

Surrounded by her own people, still surprised and hugely relieved to see them uniformed and armed, Grace starts toward home again.

"There were three Peacekeepers there," Grace remembers as they walk back down the street. A few curious faces peek out the windows at them, but it's the middle of the night. Everyone's either working or sleeping. "In our house."

"How many civilians?"

"Also three. My husband and our two boys."

"We'll try to handle this without stray fire, then."

Grace answers several questions about the layout as they go. "I wish I'd been braver," she finally concludes. Can you imagine doing this alone, for days on end, with everyone out to kill you? No militia to save you, your district partner beheaded in front of you?

"Not to worry," the woman assures her. "Someone alerted us that there were Peacekeepers in the neighborhood, so we came expecting trouble. They've been looking for Annie since midnight."

Grace hides on the porch of one of her neighbors, one she knows is away from home on military duty, while her rescuers make enough noise to draw off first one and then another guard from her house. She marvels at the efficiency.

If we'd had training, Diver and I could have done something. Maybe everyone should get training. Maybe Annie wouldn't have been so devastated in the arena.

Or maybe she would have; Annie told Grace that Octavius came back in pretty bad shape and never really recovered. But it might have made a difference.

Once she has the all-clear, Grace goes running into her house. She's met by her family running back. Donny throws his arms around her leg.

"The Peacekeepers posted a guard at the door," Diver explains, hugging her tight. "But not the back window. I had Miles sneak out and go to Elmo's for help, while the Peacekeepers were making a bonfire. They've got a phone. I guess they got the word out pretty fast."

"They burned up my new shoes!" Donny tells her, outraged. The house is totally empty, no bed, no blankets, no food, no clothes, nothing.

"It's okay," Grace says. "We have our lives. It's okay. Where's Miles?"

"I told him to stay there, where he'd be safe," Diver says.

"We need to find him!" Grace tugs on her husband's arm. "Let's go!"

She's never been so grateful for anything as to find her son scared, but safe and sound, where he's supposed to be.

Then her highest priority is getting over to her parents' apartment, making sure the family is safe, finding out what happened to them.

Their apartment, when Grace arrives, is as bare as the house she left behind.

"They wanted to take your mother for questioning," her father explains, looking shaken. "But she talked them out of it."

"I told them if I knew anything, I'd tell them," her mother hisses. "That girl's been nothing but trouble to this family since the beginning."

Grace flinches and tries to focus on getting her children settled to distract her from the complaining voice. Please be safe, Annie. Please.

Grace jumps awake in bed for the second time in the night, arms flailing and head spinning. "Who-what-?"

Even Diver wakes quickly this time. A screaming, high-pitched wail throbs in the air. Their sleep-addled brains take a minute to place it. It's the storm siren.

The shrieks are followed by a disembodied voice calmly instructing all civilians to proceed to the nearest shelter.

Then she understands. The storm alarm is now an air raid siren.

There's a mad rush from the whole neighborhood in the direction of the shelters they've been frantically digging and propping up for the last few weeks. Grace, the only one who hasn't been digging, follows the rest of her family.

This is Four's first bombing. Later, such raids will become almost routine, met with dark humor instead of near panic.

This time, it's enough that they manage to stick together, even in the dark, and end up huddled together in the same shelter while the bombs go off overhead.

Underground, there's a hubbub of voices while everyone tries to sort out what's going on.

"What time is it?"

"What happened in the arena? Was anyone watching?"

"It's four in the morning."

"The television went dark, we couldn't see anything."

"I thought I saw Katniss with her bow."

"Did she shoot Finnick?"

"I couldn't tell, it all happened too fast."

"I could have sworn I heard gunfire. Not on the television, here. Before the sirens went off."

Grace shudders. She knows there were guns. Annie, please be okay.

She whispers to the boys, holds Diver's hand, and tries to be brave.

It seems like forever, but in hindsight, the bombing ends surprisingly quickly, or else it moves on further along the shoreline. No one quite wants to come out of the cramped, stuffy, smelly shelter until dawn, though, when someone pokes his head out and reports damage but no signs of a threat from the air. Not long after, the voice on the intercom says the same, summoning the citizens out of their holes.

Grace and Diver are shocked to find their place still standing, with only a broken window. It's empty, but it's theirs.

Headquarters is far south of the Village, and that's where Rudder is these days. He's had to break the news to Foam that her husband died defending the Village, so that Annie could escape.

"So her life with was worth more," Foam says flatly.

"You saw the replays," Rudder reminds her. "They'll use her against Finnick." After he panicked, they knew they had a hold on him. And after he disappeared, they knew they'd need one. These are the pieces Donn put together.

She spits. "What's he doing, anyway?"

"Fighting a war," Rudder says.

"Abandoning his own people, protecting tributes from other districts."

Protecting Katniss. That's all Rudder knows. Where Peeta fits into the plan, he doesn't know. Most of whatever plan there may be was developed by Finnick and Mags after they arrived in the Capitol and had the opportunity to consort with the other rebels there. Where Finnick might be now, Rudder has no idea. Only that the Battle for Annie Cresta has given him confidence that his boy's not dead, no matter what the Capitol news programs keep trying to convince him.

Breaking the news to Elspa that she's his new second-in-command is easier than talking to Foam. She's stunned, but she takes it well. "I'll try to be worthy, sir."

"Now that we have a navy, I'll be gone for some time," Rudder informs her. "You'll oversee the troops and report to Pearleye. She has the final word on what she needs from the troops, but you'll be in charge of deciding how it's done. You won't be on your own; I'll leave you with the names of specialists you can call on."

"I won't let you down," Elspa swears.

Busy as he is consulting with Pearleye over strategy and making arrangements, Rudder can't get away from headquarters. He summons one of his Careers, a seventeen-year-old with a steady head, and gives him instructions to Nestor and Mell's place.

"You'll find someone in hiding. Disguise them as a soldier, and get them on the Mags." He names the recently captured and rechristened flagship of the rebel navy. "Move only by night if possible. Don't get caught, and don't name names even if you recognize them. Use the name Sandpiper. Once you're on the ship, stick together. We need to get as far away from the Capitol, as far south, as possible."

Clarents snaps out an acknowledgement of the order, and he's gone, leaving Rudder to execute the next step of the plan.

No one knows exactly how the fighting is going in Three, but they know they have allies there. Mags, Beetee, and Wiress have the oldest secret alliance in Panem.

Once the arena went dark, Finnick disappeared, and Annie couldn't be found, the bombing in Four began. They're better prepared than the Capitol reckoned with, but they're going to be stomped on like worms if they don't get better technology on their side. Capturing naval vessels was the first step. The next will be using those vessels to ship fish up to Three and and offer food and military support in exchange for technology.

Weapons may be manufactured in Two, but they're designed in Three, and there's enough manufacturing there that they should be able to start churning out materiel. First and foremost they need land mines for the borders, and antiaircraft defenses. The only reason Four is still on its feet is that the Capitol has underestimated its preparedness—this is why cutting outbound communications was so critical—and because the Capitol's had its hands full with districts like Twelve.

Pearleye and Rudder are convinced everything is going according to plan, but the plan depends upon acting as quickly as possible. It's only been ten days, and by seizing the element of surprise they've managed to cripple the Peacekeepers, but they're just barely staying one step ahead of their enemy.

Elspa will have to command the troops in Four while Rudder goes to Three. He boards the Mags three days after the end of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games, and he inspects the ship to be sure all is ready. Crew, troops, barrels of dried fish, nautical charts for as much of the coastline as they have data on. Sandpiper.

Rudder almost doesn't recognize her, standing frozen beside Clarents in the last of the twilight with her hair buzzed and her face covered in dirt and blood to better disguise it. She doesn't move or acknowledge his presence, but he's not here for small talk. She's alive; that's the best he can do.

"We're ready," he informs the captain.

"Lay in a course for District Three," the captain orders the navigator, who repeats the command to ensure she's heard it correctly.

Clarents isn't. As they head north, he dares to approach Rudder. "Sir? Aren't we supposed to be taking Sandpiper, well, south?"

"Is that what I announced where everyone could hear me?" Rudder says mildly. "Are you questioning orders?"

"Yes, sir." Clarents brightens. "I mean, no, sir. I understand, sir."

It took him longer than it should have, but Rudder finally deciphered Donn's last message.

Pearleye sighs to herself at the banging on her door. Already? Finnick's not even here and he's still up in her face demanding attention. Resigned, she presses the button on her desk to admit the first of what she expects will be a string of visitors this afternoon.

The door swings open to reveal Virginia Reel leaning on one crutch and holding the other aloft. When she's granted entrance, she lowers her improvised knocker to the ground and swings inside.

"Is it true?" she demands once she's been granted entrance. "Was he really spying for you all those years? He never said anything!"

Now, this was an interesting hire. Based on what Mags told Pearleye about Finnick's history, the whole family is loyal. Competence can only be judged in action, but with the character reference, Pearleye took her on for sensitive work. So far the decision's paid off.

Pearleye fixes her with a stern look. "Sit down. So you've been telling your family about your own assignments?"

Virginia is trapped. "Of course not," she stammers. Then her voice gets stronger. "But at least they know whose side I'm on!"

"And if we were using you as a spy, you'd be dead," Pearleye points out. "Yes, it was true. I'm going to make an announcement later backing up his story. I couldn't implicate him or Mags as long as they were in the hands of the Capitol, but now that we know he's free, I can confirm that he was reporting to me and Mags."

"Starting when?" Finnick's mother asks.

Pearleye gives no quarter. "You'd have to ask Mags, and she's dead. And that's another thing. It was safer for you to be estranged. Victors' families tend to die untimely. You may want to remain estranged. They came for Annie Cresta after he disappeared, and even I don't know where she is now. If they wanted a hold on him before his latest announcement, they'll be drooling over additional family members now."

Virginia flinches, and Pearleye's glad to see it. The last thing she needs is someone else close to Finnick who's privy to sensitive information. Pearleye can't solve the Annie problem, but she desperately hopes Rudder's on top of it. The Capitol may think they only want Annie because she'll be useful against Finnick, but once they've got her, if they question her, they'll find out that they've got a gem of information.

And all this time Pearleye worried that Annie was too unreliable to be trusted, and then it's Finnick who snaps under pressure. Of course. First taking in Cashmere from the Career pack, and then losing his head over another girl not an hour later. Well, I didn't fully trust him either.

Not that we did a great job protecting Annie, but then, who thought we needed to? Even when they fed her voice to the jabberjays, it was just to make sure they had a means of controlling Finnick if he won. Not until he disappeared did they need to get their hands on her in person, enough to make it worth singling her out in the midst of the combat zone that Four's become.

Well, Mags left Pearleye with his situation, and now she's got to deal with it.

She faces Virginia. "If that's all-"

Shaking herself, Virginia reaches for the briefcase hanging from her shoulder. "It's not. If you have the time, I wanted to ask you about a pattern I've been noticing in my work."

Virginia's been put in charge of compiling maps that come into headquarters, so Pearleye's immediately interested. Most of the maps at this stage have been centering around the placement of landmines near the border, both the ones the rebels are planting, and the pre-existing ones they're discovering. "Go on."

Pearleye and Virginia bend their heads close together over the maps spread out over the mayor's oversize desk.

"Well, my work's all been on the eastern border. And that's shared with District Two, right?"

"Correct."

"And in the north is District Three, also along the coast." Again Pearleye nods, curious to see where Virginia is going with this.

Harsh banging interrupts them. It's going to be a long day.

Virginia looks up. "Should I leave?"

Pearleye tilts her head, prepares to call her secretary, and then shakes her head in annoyance. "No, I recognize the voice. He can wait." She presses the Reject button on her desk. "Carry on."

"Okay. South is just water? And everything else is east?"

"Not quite," Pearleye explains. "South and east is uninhabited land. Or maybe unincorporated is better. There are signs that people are living there and hiding from the Capitol. But how far south you have to go before you reach a country that isn't Panem, I don't know."

"And north of Three?"

For this, Pearleye pulls a larger map, of all of Panem, from one of her drawers. It's not very detailed yet, but it's the best they've got. With luck, Finnick can get more detail out of this revolutionary circle in the Capitol that the Head Gamemaker has supposedly been running for years. "North of Three is Seven, which curves east around One to touch Six. And south and east of Six are the food districts."

Virginia runs her finger from Four along the coast to the bottom of the map, then along the desk beneath the map east to Ten. "And you can't sail to Ten or Eleven from here?"

"We're not sure how far south the land extends. No one's been that far in hundreds of years, and who knows how the coastline has changed? The food's always come by train."

"See, I thought it came by ship, because before my injury, I was always unloading food and lumber and loading fish."

"You must have lived in the south."

"Not too far south," Virginia protests. "Only block F."

"Far enough. The train only comes south as far as C. After that, you have to travel by ferry to get down to O. We had a number of theories about why, from difficult terrain to difficult neighbors to wanting to give everyone busy work, but no one knew for sure."

"But now we think it's all the old land mines, right?"

"Well, we haven't found any secret neighboring countries." Pearleye had been hoping. Any enemy of the Capitol would be her friend. "So it was quite possibly the land mines keeping them from running the rails any further south. I'm sure the busy work of transferring goods from train to ship was a plus, and then the mines would also have put a damper on any escape attempts."

"That all makes sense. But now how are we going to get food? Or, why go to all this trouble to import grain and fruits and vegetables if we could live on fish?"

"No, we do need food that isn't fish," Pearleye confirms. She's impressed by all the critical thinking that's obviously gone in to those hours spent poring over maps. She wonders if Mags missed an opportunity to include this woman in the inner circle. If Virginia hadn't been so dead set against training at the academy, she might have been recruited. "We've been stockpiling what food we could for years. And just because we've never been allowed to plant grain or grow fruit in Four, doesn't mean we couldn't. We have a plan for that as well."

"But with all the land mines we're finding, planting will be hard. Look at these numbers."

Virginia pulls out a sheet with charts showing the distribution of the land mines that have already been uncovered and mapped. Pearleye listens with a sinking heart as she listens to the other woman detail the projections for land mines they expect to find as the discovery efforts continue.

So that's where this was going. It's definitely an obstacle that they hadn't reckoned with, and a problem that's now landed solidly on Pearleye's plate. But as leader, she has to be conscious of morale. She can't let on how overwhelmed she feels.

With as encouraging a smile as she can muster, Pearleye tells Virginia, "That's certainly one reason your work is so important, apart from the obvious defensive applications. It may someday become possible to send food through District Seven. But right now it's not.

"I may pull you into a meeting to share these findings with the rest of the war council. If you have no further questions, I invite you to spend the afternoon organizing a presentation of your figures."

"I'd be glad to," Virginia says.

Virginia inclines her head respectfully and leaves. On her way out, she has to duck to avoid a collision with Brine, who's pushing his way in.

"So he got to know about the revolution in advance," he erupts right on schedule, "but I didn't?! I get to find out when Rudder opens fucking fire on the stage on Reaping Day?!"

Pearleye massages her temples. Make that a very long day.

Sander welcomes his wife home after months away with a long hug. Neither of them wants to let go.

"Tell me everything that happened while I was gone," Virginia demands.

"It hasn't been the same without you." He wipes his eyes. "I've just been digging all the time. Not much to say about that. They've finally gotten us some machines to help. I don't guess there's anything you're allowed to tell me?" He knows she's doing top-secret work, and that's all.

Virginia shakes her head. "Not really. Just that I'm glad to be useful. What about everyone else? Digging too?"

He nods. "Oh, you just missed Buck. He was home last week, now he's off at sea. It was strange to see him in uniform."

"He was accepted into the militia, then? I've missed so much."

"He was. He said even the non-Careers, the kids who went to learn a few survival skills and never touched a weapon, learned important lessons at the academy, like following orders and keeping their heads in a crisis."

"Oh, yeah? They taught them to follow orders military-style? I didn't think there was a lot of that once you got into the arena. Seemed like a free-for-all to me."

"Yes, well." Sander looks uncomfortable. "Apparently they taught them a lot of things that were going to be more use to the militia than to the Hunger Games. On purpose. Like keeping watch over each other and guarding each other's backs. Buck said they said it's the reason District Four didn't get more victors. They were too busy learning instincts that get you killed in the arena but make for a loyal army."

Virginia sighs. "Ever feel like you were wrong?"

"Well, if you mean, do I wish we'd known, then yes. I wish I knew how to fight. But we weren't wrong, not to say no to training for the Hunger Games.

"And I'll tell you one thing." Sander's voice grows more impassioned. "Finnick didn't know either, any more than Buck did. Or Brine—you should have seen the shock on his face. Would you tell kids about your secret treasonous plans? If Finnick ran away from home at nine, it was for glory. He killed five people before he turned fourteen. And who knows how many now."

Virginia thinks of the land mines by the border of Four. "You haven't killed anyone?"

"No, although sometimes I wish..." Sander widens his eyes, consumed with curiosity. "You haven't, have you?"

"No," she answers, hesitantly. "Not directly."

"You would tell me, wouldn't you? I know you can't give out details, but-"

Virginia shakes her head firmly. "No. Just desk work. But people are going to die as a result of what I do. And I'm glad!"

"Soldiers," Sander says. "Peacekeepers. Not reaped children."

"I know. Does that mean no second chances?" Virginia's been going back and forth in her mind ever since she heard the announcement, and she wants to talk it over. "He is still..." She hesitates. "Our son."

Sander looks uncomfortable. "You've been thinking about it too? Well, I'm not sure if he is. If he's changed, and he's making amends, then that's one thing. But if he just likes the taste of blood and he's equally happy to do his killing in an arena and on the battlefield, then he's no son of mine."

Virginia can't disagree. There's the blood you're born with, and the blood you choose to spill. "We wait for him to come to us with an apology, then."

Your call, Finnick.

"Can you show the last few seconds again?"

Pearleye presses rewind on the tape.

On screen, Mags' right shoulder lifts and her arm moves.

"She's tapping Finnick on the chest." Drake, former mayor and now one of her council, offers this interpretion, but without confidence.

"It's hard to see from behind," Theodore, long-time academy trainer, cautions. "Do we not have any recordings from other cameras? Any other angles?"

"That's all District Three could get us," Pearleye tells them. "We're lucky to have a recording at all. This is the evidence we have to make our decision. Either we try to get Johanna Mason out of the Capitol, or Peeta Mellark. And we do it based on who we think is more important to the revolution."

"Look!" Arthur calls. He used to run a ring of smugglers who made sure fish got counted in the quotas but never left the district. "Finnick's face. He's got his eyes rolled up in his head and he's gritting his teeth. He's frustrated that he's having to go back for Peeta, almost panicky."

Pearleye freeze frames on that shot.

Brine shakes his head. "Facial expressions while you're running all over the place don't mean shit. Look at my Games, see how many expressions you can catch me in."

With Rudder in Three, Brine's the last victor left here, and he's making the most of it.

"No, but Mags signaled him to go back, and he didn't like it. It was her idea."

Pearleye's resisting the urge to comment. She wants the unbiased opinion of her council.

"And Mags definitely ran into the fog when Katniss couldn't carry her," Drake points this out.

Brine adds, "Peeta was just slowing Finnick down, and they still decided to save him and not her."

Slowly, they reach a consensus. Saving Peeta was Mags' idea, not Finnick's. Finnick was following her orders.

That's an important point, because Mags' decisions carry weight. Finnick has very little credibility.

"Now Johanna." Is she just the latest in a string of notches on Finnick's belt, or was she a key part of the conspiracy to rescue Katniss?

The council of war in Four watches Johanna herd Beetee and Wiress into the jungle. She bosses Blight into half-carrying an injured Beetee.

On screen, the anthem plays.

"Finnick and Katniss," Wiress begins.

"-Are still alive." Beetee, stating the obvious.

Blight adds, pessimistically. "And the Careers."

Johanna's scowl is unreadable. "Well, so are we!" she snarls in defiance. "Now get some sleep. I'll keep watch."

The Three tributes obediently lie down, but Blight hesitates, giving Johanna a wry, bleak look.

"I'm not afraid of them," she whispers tightly. "I'm going home."

"Good luck," he says. She looks skeptical, but he repeats softly, "I mean it, Mason. Good luck."

Blight lies down, obviously without any hope of luck for himself.

They watch Johanna's face when she realizes Blight is dead. Angry but not worried, they agree. "She's more worried about Three than about her own district partner. And she can't even stand them, so she must have a plan."

"Maybe just an outlier alliance," Brine speculates, "if she didn't trust the Careers or Finnick and Katniss."

But then they watch—some of them for the first time—Johanna and Finnick teaming up on the beach. "He said he didn't care about anyone outside of Four and Twelve, but he sure as hell looks relieved."

"Not as relieved as she does."

"Wait, go back," Arthur prompts. "When did he say that?"

Pearleye replays Finnick.

"Well, I guess we're not holding hands any more." His trademark laugh. "Every time that cannon goes off, it's music to my ears. I don't care about any of them."

"But you said he was lying on camera for ten years to spy for Mags," Drake says to Pearleye.

"Well, if we assume everything he said and did in the arena was a lie, then we have nothing to go on!" Theodore points out, exasperated.

"Well, watch him interact with Johanna."

Finnick insists on waking her up and including her in the planning. They share a long look before she agrees.

"She's in on the rescue plan," Drake ventures. Everyone thinks he may be right, but no one can be sure.

They continue watching the bootlegged replay from Three.

"There!"

Pearleye plays it in slow motion.

Finnick and Johanna are at the lightning tree. He's caught her forearms in his hands and is saying goodbye before she and Katniss head into the jungle with the wire. He looks casually flirtatious, but she's got a serious look as she tries to read his face. Then she nods, slightly.

"He's rubbing her forearm with his thumb."

"That doesn't mean anything," Brine scoffs. "He can't keep his hands off her."

"Johanna Mason? She'd have castrated him by now." A few chuckles. "No, he's signaling her something and she's agreeing."

"That's not a lot to go on."

Johanna takes down Katniss when the Two Careers show up. She leads them deeper into the jungle, fleeing but also taunting them with her kill. The screen goes black on Brutus and Enobaria chasing Johanna.

"We have no more data after this point," Pearleye tells him, and she clicks the off button.

"Well, not from the arena. We know Katniss is alive; we've seen the propaganda. Finnick too."

"So she didn't kill Katniss."

"She meant to. Left her to bleed out."

"She wouldn't make that mistake, not Johanna Mason. She was drawing them off Katniss, protecting her. Boasted about killing her so they wouldn't go back for her."

"Why not stand and fight when Two showed up? Katniss is a good shot."

"Endgame," Brine answers. "You start killing your allies."

"No, she was protecting her. Did you see her shushing Katniss, right after she knocked her down?"

Brine's eyes narrow. "No, I missed that."

Pearleye hits the remote.

Brine shakes his head after the third replay. "It's too hard to tell. You can't see Johanna's face in that shot; it could be static, with sound quality as bad as this."

"But she protected Three, and she and Finnick kept exchanging looks and signals. And then there's an escape, and you're telling me that was a coincidence?"

"What do we know about Johanna from before the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games?" Drake asks Pearleye.

Pearleye phrases her response as neutrally as possible. "Finnick spoke well of her. He said she wasn't fully inducted as a revolutionary, because of the surveillance in the Capitol, but he said he was pretty sure she was one hundred percent the idea of a revolution. Mags never got to meet her until after the stroke; she'd left recruiting the younger crowd to Finnick."

"Well, she's not that pretty, but he's not that picky," Brine jokes, and there are snorts.

"It doesn't matter what Finnick thought of Johanna," Pearleye reminds them. "All we care about is what Mags thought."

"It is her war, after all," Arthur says. "It looks like Johanna was with them—with us—and Peeta obviously wasn't."

"But look at what Mags did," Drake says. "She decided they were teaming up with Twelve, and she made sure Finnick protected Peeta. They left Johanna to her own devices. We're going to have to do the same."

"Maybe he wanted to team up with her from the beginning but couldn't. Do you know what the bloodbath is like?" Brine asks. "Katniss and Finnick went for the Cornucopia, and Johanna never did."

"But neither did Peeta or Mags, and Mags was pointing Finnick to Peeta. I think we have to take that same gesture as her pointing us to Peeta."

"So we agree?" Pearleye finally concludes, when the discussion peters out. "When we go to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, we prioritize Peeta's rescue over Johanna's, because Mags thought he was important, even if we don't know why."

Poor Johanna. :( Part 5 will be her story.