OFFSET FIGURE-EIGHT BEND

Finnick remembered when he first met Annie. He was nineteen, and it was five years after his Games. He stood up on the stage, with Mags and the male Victor before Finnick – still alive at the time – and with Four's sickeningly colorful escort. She reached her hand, with its long, studded nails and rings upon rings, into a glass bowl and pulled a blue slip of paper. Finnick was barely listening when the escort announced, all too gleefully,

"Annie Cresta!"

He let out a weary, almost bored, sigh, and looked out into the crowd as a slip of a girl with brown hair and sea-green eyes made her way forward. She was lovely, he thought; a true Four beauty. But he could tell right away, as she walked up the steps to the stage on her skinny legs, that she was going to die.

What a lot of people didn't understand about Career districts is that they didn't send volunteer Tributes every year. The kids who volunteer are still, statistically, few and far between, and often waited until they felt they'd hit the peak of their training to volunteer. This left gaps, to be filled by kids being Reaped the old-fashioned way. Hence, Annie.

Some boy after her got called – Gil, maybe? – and made his way up. The escort wished them luck. They were all whisked away into the Justice building, and, a few hours later, to the train to the Capitol.

Throughout training, Annie was quiet, and she almost exclusively worked with Mags. Finnick wondered, when he watched her here and there, how many times Annie's name had been in that bowl. He wondered what kind of family she was leaving behind. He wondered if she had friends who missed her. He wondered if she ever worked on a boat, if she liked to read, if she'd ever swam out to Lover's Cove with a boy, if she liked her oysters by themselves or with ground horseradish. But every time he caught himself wondering, he knew it didn't matter. Because Annie was going to die.

With his Capitol-perfected, winning smile, Finnick lied through his freshy-straightened, pearly teeth as he told Annie and the boy – Gault? – that if they just kept a level head, were cautious, and remembered their training, they'd be fine.

Finnick figured the boy – Gordon? – had a chance. The kid was one of the older Tributes that year, and though wiry, he was tall enough to potentially intimidate the others. And he was fast; maybe fast enough to just get away and hide, and avoid conflict. But he was sure Annie was going to die. She wasn't particularly strong, or skilled, or ferocious. She had none of the key features of a winning Tribute.

Finnick went to the parties with potential sponsors once the Games started, as he was expected to do. Unfortunately, he had to go it alone; Mags never went to these kinds of things anymore, and no one from the Capitol expected to see her, because she wasn't young and beautiful and fuckable, like Finnick. At these parties, he watched the Games go on with the Capitolites. But he barely payed attention. He knew his Tributes didn't have much of a chance this year, and he preferred not to watch two kids from Four, just like him, get slaughtered, just like he could have been.

But on the fourth day, while Finnick was obligingly watching the Games at yet another party, he watched the boy die.

It happened very abruptly. By coincidence, Annie and the boy were in the same area of the arena, across a river from one another. He'd made an alliance with the girl from One, but he had since spent the last eighteen hours fleeing her after she'd turned on him. Annie had been hiding. They both had made a break for the river to get water. From across the bank, they made eye contact. For a moment, they felt almost at ease. Two kids from Four at the water.

Their moment was cut short when the girl from One, having tracked the boy, sprung up from behind a rock, and beheaded him from behind. It made Finnick jump, and drop his Capitol persona to drop his drink and cover his mouth, stifling a gasp. His heart sank as Annie dropped to her knees and screamed. She screamed louder and with more anguish than Finnick had ever heard before.

Annie ran from the river and into the forest. They didn't see her again for another three days, when the Gamemakers flooded the arena.

A day and a half after that, Finnick boarded a hovercraft. They told him Annie was the last one alive; they only knew because of her tracker. No one had seen her since the incident at the river. But when they steadied the craft over the deep water, Finnick looked out of the bay door and saw her there. Annie Cresta, treading over what had been the river. They couldn't get the net under her to bring her up. Landlubbers, Finnick thought with spite. They had to lower him down on a line.

Annie started screaming again – with all the fear and horror as before – as soon as Finnick put his arm around her. She tried to pull away from him, but she was so weak. They hoisted them up, and Finnick deposited her on the floor of the hovercraft. Annie kept screaming. Finnick reached his hand out, to settle it gently on her back, hoping to comfort her. But he hesitated, just a few inches away, and withdrew his hand.

Annie kept screaming.