☆ CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN! ☆
027. ghost of friends

|| DEAD AIR ||
❝you will be all
that I seek. In a
twister light, I
would live
inside you.❞

➳➳

NOTHING COULD PREPARE Finnick for how he felt when he was given his small room in District 13. Heaven knew that he tried so hard to clam down, to think through everything and try to contain the sheer level of fear he had when he thought of her in the Capitol, but his resistance to his own panic seemed futile. Each time he tried, panic found a new way to bubble to the surface like boiling water that had been left on the stove for far too long with the lid on; every time it boiled over. Without fail, without rebuttal.

Why? Lorna Titan, the only thing that would never fall into place, was stuck in Hell while Finnick got to be saved.

He hadn't been able to say any words that meant something to him, and he couldn't ever put the right Lego bricks together to make the castle that he had been trying to build for her ever so slowly for years. Each time she would flinch away from it's height, or the drawbridge would fall and never come back up because she was too busy running away to her own hut- if it was up to him Finnick would of kept her in a palace.

If everything had gone how he wanted it to, he would be asking Lorna Titan to marry him after two years of tender phone calls and long train rides between two Districts that had always been too far away. He would of kissed her better when he found her, and she would of never had to hear another horror again.

And yet, none of that was true.

Instead, like all things, she was broken. Not enough for him to throw the pieces out, for he loved every single one of them more than he thought was possible to ever love the whole world his feet were firmly planted on. A world that placed her away from him, a world that made his feet stand on polished stone and leather boots when her's could of already been dangling by a plastic noose.

That made him loose his calm all too quickly; his hands shook as he stumbled into the opposite wall.

His fingers ran over the displaced stone as he thought of what she would be seeing around her- if her eyes were able to work at all- between a Capitol apartment that he knew would make her finally fall from troubled onto insane, or a prison in which she would slowly rot.

He didn't know which was worse, and which he would of chosen for her if he had to concoct the best torture scenario that he could in his head. He wasn't like her, he hadn't got half the empathy that she had in her smallest finger, so he couldn't imagine what would be best. He was the one that was supposed to stop those thoughts from having to be born.

He should of saved her.

With all the sadness that was weighing him down it only seemed reasonable to scream- to scream and shout so loudly that Lorna would hear him where she had ended up. He screamed and he cried until he couldn't find the energy for tears, and he no longer felt as alone as he had before. Not physically anyway, not as a girl with far too much already lost ran through his foolishly open door.

Katniss Everdeen stood in Finnick's room watching the Victor lose his very soul.

She felt terrible for being closer to Johanna when the world tilted off it's axis and the tributes fell off; the rebellion needed Lorna so despiratly that it seemed to have made a hole for her in its bedroom wall. And now, she was gone because they were too alike.

She played the girl from Five's words in her head every time she started to think of anything other than their new home. It was a disease, and yet every time the smooth and elegant voice of Lorna Titan bounced down her body it made her feel like there was still something left within the cause she had created.

We're a lot alike girl on fire, remember that.

"We're going to get her back Finnick, Peeta too." Katniss said after a moment of suffocation. She wanted to do it for them- she had no idea how much the 19 year old had done for her in the short amount of time they had been with each other.

Finnick's eyes glanced up from his hands long enough to see the sensarity in Katniss' eyes. They reminded him of Lorna's too much for him to bare, even if Lorna had a spark inside of them Katniss didn't- even when she was sure her eyes looked as dead as the children she stuck a steel weapon through.

"I need her back- Katniss we need her here." Finnick slurred between deep breaths and cracks in his voice. It was hard for Katniss to imagine the smooth velvet voice of the man she met in the games now that she looked at him, it was hard to imagine the smile on his face that put the sun to shame.

"I was scared..... I thought she wasn't ready and now- she's just gone."

The hysteria returned as Finnick thought about what he could of done. What he should of done. To him, it was more his fault that she was in the Capitol than his friend who had promised him safety, and it was his fault that they had left everything so raw and unfinished.

"Her sister's here." Katniss all but blurted out when he glanced down once more. She wanted the news to calm him into a sense of strength, or maybe to bring him a little comfort that not all of them were taken, but it only seemed to do the opposite.

"What?" He hissed, so many different lumps in his throat making it impossible to swallow any air.

"District 5 was the first to get bombed before-". The Girl on Fire couldn't say the words she was going to; small pools formed in the corner of her eyes as she thought of her home and what it had become.

"They got Lillian out first. Evelyn made sure of it." Katniss finished after she cleared her throat.

"Where is she?"

"She's waiting in the food hall."

That was all Finnick needed.

➳➳

He sprinted out of his door and around the corner with a speed he hadn't felt in weeks so that he could race through the muddy stone walls of Thirteen and face a set of metal stairs.

The metal scratched when he slammed his feet against it so hard he could of fallen through, but it didn't make him even take a look at how damaging the fall could of been, because he knew if he did fall it would only help him reach Lorna's sister faster. With another large bang, and a crash as loud as thunder when the clouds were hovering over you specifically, he jumped the final half flight.

He only stopped when he faced the door that stood between him and the sister.

Through the ashy windows in the middle of the metal door Finnick could see silhouettes of people inside the room who seemed like statues. He took a breath before hand- one that let in a copious amount more oxygen then the first time he tried it- then he hesitantly pushed the door open by it's large metal handle with so much force that it hit the wall behind it with a slam. The noise startled the guard and the girl beside him that turned to stare at the Victor, who had stars hidden behind the momentary shock of her brown eyes.

She was so tiny, so delegate and so much like the other Titan girl as she watched him with nothing but curiosity laced behind the warm amber swirls; even from the meters away that they stood Finnick could see that. He could see how she mirrored her sister in her caution, and how her hair was a couple of shades lighter then her sister's as she tried her best to push it away from her slightly chubby cheeks.

When she glanced at the guard again with a small tug of his sleeve, she asked him a question that only a Titan would managed to ask- only someone that had grown up worshiping the land that Lorna must of hobbled past. She had her empathy, the thing he cherished most about her in the world.

"Has he been crying?" She tried to understand, but the guard didn't answer.

Her voice was like the lightest cake he had ever eaten; it made Finnick pause mid step so he could make sure he was acceptable to see her. With one harsh swipe under his eye's shadow monsters, he stood still.

Lillian didn't need a second to watch Finnick before her small legs ran to the man and held him tight. As soon as she reached the man from 4 she threw her small and frail arms around his waist and buried her head in the same spot, crying into his shirt as he looked down bewildered. They had never met before, but somehow they both simultaneously knew everything about each other that they needed.

Lillian knew that Lorna thought Finnick was special, and Finnick knew she was the reason he had to make her better.

"Sh-she's not here, i-is she." Lillian stuttered between heavy breaths and sobs; her head moved furiously with her tears.

"Shhhh, she'll be back soon." Finnick whispered to the girl, prying her arms away so he could crouch to the girl's height. Tears pooled in Finnick's eyes, giving the pain they shared the perfect swimming pool between the two.

"She promised me she wouldn't leave me like Daddy did. She promised." Lillian sobbed, her hand gripped onto the black T-shirt Finnick was given until it creased into the shapes of her fingers.

"Shhhh. Lorna will be back Lillian, she's not leaving you yet."

He stroked her silk-like hair until her sob's became almost silent. That was the only saving grace, the only thing that he could offer a child that had lost her family in the most terribly slow way imaginable; he was good at comforting people in distress, and he was overly thankful for that gift in that moment.

"Until then she's sent me to look after you. I'm your special soilder." Finnick cooed with more determination than he had ever felt. "She told me that she loves you dearly, a-and that she promises to come to you when she can."

"You're gonna look af-fter me?" Lillian asked, her eyes still droopy. "You won't leave me?"

"I promise I won't." He agreed with the small child. He thought that he would keep that promise- he knew he would give all that he could to make it true- but he didn't know the future, and he couldn't keep a promise that severe.

•••••••••
1905 words

My heart, poor Lillian.
I'm going on holiday next
week guys so updates will be
up but i might not be able
to do much else. Let's be
thankful I'm kinda
organised.