13

PROMISE ME

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

"I have a plan..." Beetee muttered to Katniss and Johanna.

Johanna stood up, "Finnick! Evelyn!"

The two other tributes joined the group to make it six again, all of them huddling around Beetee who seemed to know just what to do for them to win. If it was still possible for them to win. 

"I have a plan," he repeated and pushed his glasses further up his nose, "Where do the careers feel safest? The jungle?"

"The jungle is a nightmare," Johanna interrupted from beside Evelyn who had just sat down on the sand.

"Probably here on the beach," Peeta stated.

"Then why are they not here?"

"Because we are," Evelyn answered Beetee, "We claimed the beach before they could and now we have the upper hand."

"And if we left, would they come?"

"Or stay hidden in the treeline," Finnick responded to Beetee.

"Which in just over four hours will be soaked in water by the ten o'clock wave," a small, proud smile found its way on Beetee's face, "And then what happens at midnight?"

Beetee glanced over to Katniss to wait for her response, "Lightning strikes that tree."

The smile grew more and more on his face, "Here's what I propose; we leave the beach at dusk, we head to the lightning tree. That should draw them back to the beach. Prior to midnight, we then run this wire from the tree to the water. Anyone in the water or on the damp sand will be electrocuted."

"How do we know that the wire isn't going to burn up?" Johanna asked, her tone a bit more toxic than she was going for.

"Because I invented it," he replied nonchalantly, "I assure you, it won't burn up."

Evelyn glanced his way. He invented it? There was no way that Snow would put wire in the arena, especially considering how Beetee had won his games. Right? But then again, Snow was stupid enough to put victors back into the games. Victors who knew how to outsmart and kiss; knew how to win. Maybe Snow hadn't been as much of a decisive factor as he hoped. Maybe the power was slipping out from beneath his feet.

There was silence amongst the group, it was awkward and lethal, "Well, it's better than hunting them down."

Katniss took a few seconds to come to a decision, "Yeah, why not? If it fails, no harm done anyway, right?"

"I say we try it," Peeta nodded, "So what can we do to help?"

"Keep me alive for the next six hours, that would be extremely helpful," Beetee remarked before all eyes fell on Evelyn who had stayed almost silent for the most of it and hadn't even come to a decision herself. She needed the careers out of the way, that was true. But she had no idea what would happen after that and it was just the six of them left. Would they hunt each other down? Would they wait for the Capitol to finish them off?

Evelyn had no qualm with putting a dagger in Chaff if it meant keeping her promise to Haymitch. If it meant keeping her daughter safe. Chaff knew it too, maybe that was why he had kept his distance the whole time.

She simply nodded her head but she was still unsure. She just wanted her daughter to be safe, she didn't care about what happened to her. Evelyn only hoped that Finnick had managed to get her family out of the Districts and somewhere safe before it all becomes a disaster.

⋆

Evelyn ran into the cornucopia of the 68th Hunger Games in search for a sword, it was the only weapon she could wield and without it she was dead. But it was gone. Her eyes searched around hopefully for it to be on one of the bodies or at least on the floor, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Another cannon boomed in the arena following a blood-curdling scream, then a clash of metal and metal. She ran outside with a bag now on her back to see two tributes fighting to the death with an axe and the sword that Snow had put in there to torment her with. She knew he had to put it in there for her.

Another cannon sounded.

The girl with the sword had lost to the boy with the axe, blood covering his face to the point where it was almost unrecognisable. Without hesitation Evelyn ran to the sword, catching the eyes of the boy from District 6 with the axe. He smiled evilly and launched it at her frame, making her duck to avoid getting killed before continuing to sprint to the weapon.

Just as the hilt connected with her hands, her feet no longer felt the snow below her as he tackled her much smaller frame to the ice forcefully. Evelyn yelled out and brought the sword up instinctively just as he came back down to attack her, the sword puncturing his chest with a shout of pain. Evelyn felt the tears brim in her eyes as the blood dripped onto her face.

It was in those split seconds that the young Evelyn Miracle became a murderer and a victim of the Games, but it would only go on to fuel her fire.

⋆

Evelyn felt arms wrap around her waist protectively, "What are you thinking about?"

The waves crashed against her knees peacefully as Finnick and Evelyn stood in the water, staring at the sun that was setting on the arena dome. She felt a few tears fall from her eyes at the thought of having to leave her daughter behind with neither of her parents, it scared her deeply. She sighed and leaned her head back to rest it on his shoulder.

"My first Hunger Games, my first kill to be exact," she scoffed lightly at the thought of it, "I didn't even mean to kill him but we were both fighting for the sword and it just happened. I can't get his face out my mind after all these years, I had only talked to him once in the training arena and that was it. But I remember his name, his family's names and how they reacted when I tried to apologise. I remember the sound that his mother made as she saw me on that stage in his District. How it silenced the crowds-"

Finnick turned her around to face him, taking her red cheeks in his hands, "Evelyn, we are all here right now because of what we did to survive. Not one of us in this arena are innocent and not one of those gamemakers are either, Snow is the only one with blood on his hands and he is the only one who matters right now."

She nodded and rested her head on his with a frown, the tears now freely flowing, "When you get out of this arena, I want you to find Aeliana, okay? I want you to tell her that I love her very much and that I tried. The only thing I have done in here is try, and it was all for you and for her. So we could finally be a family. But I made promises that I have to keep, so when you get out. Just tell her that I am sorry."

His brows furrowed, "What do you mean?"

"Just promise me Finnick, promise me that you will get out of here in one piece and find out daughter-" the hysterics came, her sobs cutting off her train of words before she wrapped her arms around his frame.

He was confused, dazed and confused. He had no words but he had to say something, "I promise." But he didn't mean it, he had made promises just like she had and it involved fighting for her as well as Katniss. It was the only way that Haymitch and Atlas could get him to agree. But she didn't know that. She couldn't know that. Not until they were out safely.

She pulled away from the embrace and looked up at his blue eyes, the ones as deep as the ocean. The ones that she fell in love with all those years ago. The very ones that her daughter had. She smiled brightly before pulling in for their last kiss, their lips colliding with passion and emotion. He had no idea that this kiss was a goodbye, but she had no idea that it was just a hello.

She wiped her eyes and left him there to watch the sun fall below the trees just as she heard Johanna call out to Katniss and Peeta, "Alright, lovebirds!"

Johanna's eyes softened at the sight of Evelyn who seemed to be recovering from being distraught, Evelyn simply shook her head and sauntered over to Beetee to help him begin to uncoil the wire.

⋆

The alliance of six marched up an incline near the lightning tree that was filled with rocks, rudely interrupted by the daily reminder of all the tributes who had lost their lives. As the others continued to watch the video that played, Evelyn turned away as Mags' face appeared.

She was soon joined by the others and they made their way to the tree in no time, it was much bigger than Evelyn had thought it was despite everything going on. It looked old and worn, just like she had expected. With all the continuous lightning striking it twice a day, she assumed it to be much worse.

"Minimal charring, it's an impressive conductor. Let's get started," Beetee began to wrap the coil around the trunks of the tree as he explained the method. Evelyn watched and listened from a small distance away from them, where she paid most of her attention to the treeline, "Typically a lightning strike contains five billion joules of energy. We don't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when this thing hits."

Beetee then turned to Katniss and Johanna, "You two girls go together now, take this. Unspool it carefully. make sure the entire coil is in the water. Do you understand? Then head to the tree in the two o'clock sector, we'll meet you there."

"I'm gonna go with them as a guard," Peet informed the group.

"No, no, no," Beetee tutted, "You are staying here to protect me and the tree."

"No, I need to go with her."

"There are two careers out there, I can't just let you go running off with them," Beetee tried to explain to Peeta who seemed to be having none of it.

"Finnick and Evelyn can protect you just fine," he almost chuckled.

"Yeah, why can't Finnick, Evelyn and Johanna stay here with you and Peeta and I take the coil?" Katniss asked.

"You all agreed to keep me alive until midnight, correct?" Beetee approached Katniss.

Evelyn just watched from the sidelines as they all started to get involved, she honestly had no idea why there was such a big disagreement so far into the plan. She didn't want to wait by the tree for any second longer than she needed to.

"It's his plan, we all agreed to it," Johanna added with a shrug.

"Is there a problem here?" Finnick asked them, clearly annoyed.

"Excellent question," Beetee replied.

"No," Katniss breathed out reluctantly, "There's no problem." Katniss turned to Peeta and gave him a kiss on the lips, "I'll see you at midnight."

Evelyn watched as Katniss and Johanna left them at the tree and ventured back through the forest and to the water so the plan would actually work. She felt Peeta near her and lean on the tree that she had been leaning on the whole time silently.

"Your sword, I never see you without it. You wouldn't even let Finncik hold it longer than a second," he inquired, "Why?"

"It's my weapon."

"What do you mean?" he asked, making Evelyn hold up the sword to show him the hilt.

"This sword, it is the same one my parents used in their Games and the same one I used in my first Games, It is just a sick way of Snow saying that he owns me and that I wouldn't be alive without him," Evelyn then tightened the grip on her sword at went back to scanning the trees in silence. Her fingers brushed over the engraving on the hilt of the sword. It took her father hours to carve the flower in the metal and she watched each and every hour as she trained for her own games. 

"I'll be right back," Finnick informed the group before he left Evelyn with Peeta and Beetee, sparing her one last glance before he stumbled into the trees.

"What was that about?" Evelyn asked Beetee who simply just shrugged and went back to staring at the tree as if calculating what would happen to them when the lightning finally decided to strike.

Evelyn got up from the place where she had been guarding and decided to do a perimeter sweep, making sure that none of the careers had been waiting to pick them off one by one.

But something didn't feel right.

Something was off.

And it was too late for Evelyn to figure out what due to being whacked over the head with something heavy, she fell to the ground with a grunt and was rendered unconscious.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

its the final countdown