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SHALL WE RISE?

act two. 

(chapter thirty-four, time is a precious thing)

the arena, 2313.

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"IS THAT—?" FINNICK WONDERED as he and Valencia stepped out of the jungle. "Is that them?"

Valencia nodded her head and when she saw the man with the hunch and the woman with the annoyed expression, her and Finnick's faces lit up. 

"Commie and Johanna," Valencia breathed. "Comm! Jo!"

Valencia took off running, sprinting down the beach with Finnick right on her tail. They were calling out their names, Johanna turning around and seeing them, meeting them as she began to talk very fast that Valencia couldn't understand her. But it was Commie. Commie was right there. He was coated in something that looked like paint, but Valencia wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it coated her as well as took him into a tight embrace.

She practically jumped on him, arms wrapping around his neck as she laid her head on his shoulder. Automatically, Commie wrapped his arms around her, laying his head on hers.

"I thought you were dead." Valencia half-sobbed as she clutched onto Commie. "I thought you had died."

"No, I'm right here, I'm right here." Commie shushed her as he held a hand up to her head, cradling it. "I'm safe, don't worry... I'm safe."

"I'm sorry I didn't come for you," Valencia muttered. "I should have waited by the Cornucopia for you."

"I didn't see you either," Commie assured her. "And the Careers' were already there. Don't want you risking your life for me."

It was when Katniss and Peeta finally came over that Valencia let go of Commie, wandering over to Johanna and Finnick. She was gesturing towards the jungle and was still talking very fast. Her face seemed to light up when she saw Valencia, but she did not cease from spewing out words.

"We all thought it was rain, you know, because of the lightning, and we were all so thirsty. But when it started to come down, it turned out to be blood. Thick, hot blood." Valencia cringed when she looked down at her blood coated undergarments. "You couldn't see, you couldn't speak without getting a mouthful. We just staggered around, trying to get out of it. That's when Blight hit the force field."

"I'm so sorry, Jo," Valencia said as she placed a hand on Johanna's shoulder, the woman reaching up and squeezing it.

"Yeah, well, he wasn't much, but he was from home," she said. "And he left me and Commie alone with these two." She nudged Beetee with her shoe, who was barely conscious on the sand. "He got a knife in the back at the Cornucopia. And her—"

They all looked to Wiress, who was coated in blood and walking around in circles, muttering, "Tick, tock. Tick, tock," under her breath.

"Yeah, we know. Tick tock. Nuts is in shock," Johanna said, causing Wiress to come over to her closely, Johanna pushing her harshly down to the sand. "Just stay down, will you?"

"Lay off her!" Katniss snapped.

Johanna slowly looked up at Katniss, narrowing her brown eyes as she hissed, "Lay off her? Who do you think got them out of that bleeding jungle for you? You—" Johanna slapped Katniss so hard that she nearly stumbled over. Finnick tossed her thrusting body over his shoulder and carried her out to the water, dunking her in the water as she continued to shout multiple profanities at Katniss. Valencia shook her head. Someone else had now filled the role of arguing and bickering with Katniss.

"Come on, Comm," she muttered as she began to lead the man away. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Valencia and Commie sat in the shallow ends of the water, just a little away from Katniss and Wiress, who was also getting cleaned, and Finnick and Johanna, who was still being dunked. Commie was rubbing the blood off of his chest and arms whilst Valencia poured water into his grey hair, cleaning the blood out.

"So, what's happened?" Commie asked as he watched the water go a purple, red colour. 

"Well, Peeta hit a force field," Valencia began as she massaged Commie's head. She chuckled when she saw him widen his eyes. "Finnick revived him though... and then there was poisonous fog that targeted our nerve systems and created blisters—"

"Is that why you look like a zombie?" Commie looked over his shoulder, looking up at her peeling skin.

"You're funny, aren't you?" Valencia grumbled, but carried on with her story. "And then once we managed to survive that, we ended up on the beach. And then when we were in the jungle, monkey mutts attacked us. Everdeen nearly died, but me being the kind person I am, saved her."

"And no-one died at any of those stages?" Commie asked doubtfully.

"Mags sacrificed herself at the fog, walking straight in," Valencia said, lowering her voice so Finnick couldn't hear her. Commie sighed at the news of Mags's death. "And then at the monkeys, the woman from Six also sacrificed herself for Peeta."

Commie nodded his head as he let the news sink in. Valencia looked up and saw that Katniss and Peeta were tending to Beetee, who was lying on one of Finnick's mats. Wiress was alone in the shallows, still muttering to herself.

"It's like she's trying to tell us something," Commie mumbled as the two of them stood up in the water, Commie now clean and the blood washed off the both of them.

"Don't say that too loud," Valencia warned him, pointing to where Johanna was still getting cleaned. "Jo might attack you."

When everyone was cleaned off, they all sat on the sand. Johanna and Commie spent most of their time gulping fresh water and filling themselves with shellfish. Wiress wouldn't eat so Katniss had to try and stuff some of the fish into her mouth. Finnick, who was sitting beside Valencia, began to recite what Valencia told Commie. He spoke in a distant voice and he seemed to leave out what happened to Mags.

Everybody offered to stay guard, but in the end, Johanna, Valencia, and Katniss were the ones who stayed up and watched. Valencia was flipping one of her knifes around as she watched Finnick sleep. His face was peaceful as he slept, but Valencia knew that there was a war raging in his head.

"How'd you lose Mags?" Johanna asked the two women lightly, making sure Finnick was asleep.

"In the fog. Finnick had Peeta. I had Mags for a while. Then I couldn't lift her. Finnick said he couldn't take them both and Valencia was too weak. Mags kissed him and walked right into the poison," said Katniss as she looked over at Valencia.

"She was Finnick's mentor, you know." 

"No, I didn't."

"She was half his family," Johanna mumbled.

The three women watched the waves lap at the sand, Valencia making a hole in the ground with her knife. She swallowed a lump in her throat as she looked over to Commie, who was sleeping restlessly beside her.

"So what were you and Commie doing with Nuts and Volts?" Katniss asked Johanna.

"I told you — we got them out for you. Haymitch said if we were to be allies, me and Commie had to bring them to you," Johanna said, looking from the old man to Katniss. "That's what you told him, right?"

"Thanks. I appreciate it." Katniss nodded her head.

"I hope so."

"Either way, you were going to be stuck with Commie." Valencia sighed. "Where I go, he goes and vice versa."

"How long have you know each other?" Katniss asked her.

"Technically, nine years," Valencia responded. "But he was my brother's mentor so really fifteen."

"Antares? The guy Commie volunteered for?"

Valencia nodded her head and as Katniss went to go open her mouth, Wiress had crawled over, her eyes focused on the jungle as she kept muttering, "Tick, tock."

"Oh, goody, she's back. Okay, I'm going to sleep. You two and Nuts can guard together." Johanna sighed as she laid on the sand, closing her eyes.

Valencia watched as Katniss soothed Wiress back to sleep. The woman did drift off, but she was still muttering the phrase. Katniss looked over to Valencia, who just shrugged.

"Tick, tock," Katniss cooed as she stroked the woman's arm. "It's time for bed. Tick, tock. Go to sleep."

"Comm said it's like she's trying to tell us something," Valencia muttered as she watched the restless woman. "She's never been able to communicate properly though."

"She's always been... crazy?" Katniss asked softly.

"From what I can remember." Valencia sighed. "Most Victors' go crazy after their Games. You're lucky."

"How am I lucky?" Katniss asked her, confusion setting in her face.

"You won a year ago, you and Peeta are the newest Victors'," Valencia explained. "You haven't been around long enough to be friends with these people. People like Commie, who's been around for forty-two years, he knows everyone. I do too and it destroys you inside to see the people who you thought as friends in the sky."

"I thought you said the past was the past, that everyone wants to be a Victor."

"Yeah, well, I say things I don't mean sometimes," Valencia mumbled. "You know? You're all right, Everdeen."

"Katniss."

"What?"

"Just call me Katniss," she said. "You don't have to keep calling me Everdeen."

"Okay, Katniss."

The sun rose into the sky. Valencia was playing with her knives and Katniss was keeping Wiress calm when across the water to the right, an enormous flash went off as a lightning bolt hit the same tree as it did last night, the electrical storm beginning. (We would need a very powerful electrical surge to destroy the force field)

Valencia and Katniss sat beside each other as they watched the lightning, the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach echoing throughout their ears. It would have been peaceful if they weren't fighting for their lives.

"Tick, tock," Wiress muttered, waking up before drifting back to sleep. At this, Katniss began to mutter under her breath the same phrase.

"You haven't gone crazy now, have you?" Valencia chuckled, eyebrows furrowing as she watched Katniss slowly rise up and survey the arena. "Katniss, what's wrong?"

"Tick, tock," Wiress muttered. Valencia watched as the lightning ceased and the blood rain began just to the right of it. "Tick, tock."

"Oh," Katniss said under her breath, Valencia rising from the sand and going beside her. "Tick, tock... tick, tock... Valencia?"

"Yeah?"

"The arena's a clock."

Valencia raised a brow as she watched the blood rain fall. A clock. But how? Katniss rushed and shook the others awake whilst Valencia studied the arena. And it made sense. The arena was shaped in a circle, the spikes creating wedges. The platforms where the tributes started. The lighting, the blood rain, the fog, the monkeys. Each hour began a new horror. It made sense how the lightning stopped and was immediately replaced with the blood rain in the wedge next to it. How when the fog stopped, the monkeys appeared.

Valencia was still standing, facing the Cornucopia as Katniss hurriedly began to explain the theory to the others, who were slowly gaining conscious. Even Johanna, who seemed to disagree with everything Katniss said, agreed it was better to be safe than sorry.

"She's a genius," Valencia muttered as she turned around and saw the others quickly begin to collect their possessions, Beetee back into his swimsuit. "Wiress is a bloody genius."

When Katniss woke Wiress up, her face flooded with relief that someone figured it out. She probably knew from the first tolling of those bells. Midnight. The bells were a signal that it was starting, the hourly horrors.

"It starts at midnight," Valencia said to the others, Katniss and Wiress nodding along with her.

"One-thirty," Wiress said as she nodded to the blood rain.

"Exactly. One-thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," Katniss said as she pointed to the nearby jungle. "So we have to move somewhere safe now. Are you thirsty, Wiress?"

Katniss gave her a woven bowl of water and she drank about a quarter of it. Finnick gave her the last bit of bread and she began to munch on it. Valencia looked down to Beetee, who Peeta was trying to lift up. He was in and out of it.

"Wire."

"She's right here," Peeta assured him. "Wiress is fine. She's coming too."

"Wire," Beetee began to insist. (I have added Beetee's coil into the Cornucopia)

"Oh, I know what he wants," Johanna said impatiently. She crossed the beach and picked up the wire that had hung from his belt. It was covered in blood. "This worthless thing. It's some kind of wire or something. That's how he got cut. Running up to the Cornucopia to get this. I don't know what kind of weapon it's supposed to be. I guess you could pull of a piece and us it as a garrotte or something. But really, can you imagine Beetee garrotting somebody?" Johanna really was a good actress.

"He won his Games with wire. Setting up that electrical trap," Peeta said. "It's the best weapon he could have."

Johanna was putting on a show and oh, was she good at it. But as Katniss furrowed her brows, Valencia realised she was getting suspicious that Johanna was not piecing it together. 

"Seems like you'd have figured that out," Katniss said. "Since you nicknamed him Volts and all."

"Yeah, that was really stupid of me, wasn't it?" Johanna narrowed her eyes. "I guess I must have been distracted by keeping your little friends alive. While you were... what, again? Getting Mags killed off?"

Katniss tightened her grasp on the knife at her handle. Valencia quietly unclipped one of her own as she watched Johanna chuckle.

"Go ahead. Try it. I don't care if you are knocked up, I'll rip your throat out!"

"Let's not kill a pregnant woman, please," Commie asked. "Katniss, let go of the knife. Mason, calm the hell down." Commie took the coil from Johanna's hands and gave it to Beetee. "Here's your wire, Volts."

"Where to?" Peeta asked as he picked up Beetee. Katniss had lowered her knife and Johanna had stalked off behind her.

"I'd like to go to the Cornucopia and watch. Just to make sure we're right about the clock," Finnick suggested and everyone nodded their heads.

As they walked to the Cornucopia, Valencia couldn't help but think about Katniss. She was most likely thinking about ways to kill them all. But no, she couldn't. Because Valencia, Finnick, and Johanna could kill her in a second, but they couldn't. Johanna had to be lying when she said she'll kill Katniss, probably to intimidate her like Valencia did prior. The plan was too precious.

Seven were still alive for the plan, including Valencia. Six were alive outside of the arena. Or five. Valencia wondered what punishment Cinna got for making that dress for the interviews. She concluded that there was probably only five people outside of the arena. Nova, Haymitch, Antares, Plutarch, and Ezra. Haymitch had helped out, of course, and since Katniss was allies with Valencia and Commie, Nova and Antares would have somewhat of a say in what parachutes go down to them.

They walked to the nearest sand trip, approaching the Cornucopia cautiously. Everyone had their weapons raised just in case the Careers' decided to do a surprise attack. Valencia realised that Commie had a belt wrapped around his waist with throwing knives in them. She wondered if Cashmere and Gloss had any blades, since Valencia and Commie had two belts already. At the Cornucopia, it had been abandoned and only the big horn and the pile of weapons remained.

Peeta laid Beetee in the Cornucopia as he called out to Wiress. She crouched beside him and he placed the coil of wire in her hands. "Clean it, will you?"

She scampered to the water's edge as she began to dunk the wire in the water. She was quietly singing a children's song that involved a mouse running up a clock.

"You're kidding." Commie sighed as he rubbed his face. "Not that stupid song again."

"She went on for hours before she started tick-tocking." Johanna rolled her eyes.

"Two," Wiress said as she pointed to the jungle, suddenly standing up.

Valencia followed her finger and saw that the fog had begun to flow onto the sand. (Her cries echoed around the arena as Valencia watched her try and claw her eyes out, blood tears streaming down the Career's face as scratches began to form)

"Look, the fog's started," Valencia said as she tried to shake the memory out of her head. "It must be two o'clock now."

"Like clockwork," Peeta said. "You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress."

She smiled and went back to cleaning the wire, singing as she did, Beetee saying, "Oh, she's more than smart. She's intuitive. She can sense things before anyone else. Like a canary in one of your coal mines."

"What's that?" Finnick asked.

"It's a bird that we take down into the mines to warn us if there's bad air," Katniss said.

"What's it do, die?" Johanna questioned. 

"It stops singing first. That's when you should get out. But if the air's too bad, it dies, yes. And so do you."

Everyone nodded their heads as they all began to poke around at the large pile of fallen weapons. Valencia already had so many knives on her belt with a machete and a few daggers accompanying them and so, she walked over to a rack and picked out a spear. She twirled it around as she watched Johanna lodge an axe into the side of the Cornucopia. Katniss was restocking her arrows whilst she watched them.

"A spear?" Commie asked her as he picked a large knife from the pile. "What are you going to do with that?"

"Kill someone with it?"

Commie rolled his eyes as he attached the knife to his belt. Valencia was still twirling the spear around in her hands, peering down at the pile as she tried to find something else. Finnick was stocking up on tridents, Johanna gathering up multiple axes. Commie was flicking through the different bladed knives. 

"You're going to poke someones eye out with that, Lennie." Finnick chuckled as he came over to her with a trident. 

"I'll poke the Careers' eyes out," she mumbled as she twirled the blade behind her back. "Bloody hell, they get on my nerves."

"I thought the Careers' were your friends?" Johanna asked her, juggling a few axes.

"Of course not," Valencia cooed. "You guys are."

The four of them went wondering over to Peeta and Katniss, who were hunched over a large leaf. They had drawn a map of the arena. He had labelled all the wedges that they knew with the horrors and what time they commenced.

"Did you notice anything unusual in the others?" Katniss asked Johanna, Beetee, and Commie.

"All we saw was blood." Commie shrugged.

"I guess they could hold anything." Katniss sighed.

"I'm going to mark the ones where we know the Gamemakers' weapon follows us out past the jungle, so we'll stay clear of those," said Peeta as he drew a diagonal line through the fog and wave beach sections, sitting back. "Well, it's a lot more than we knew this morning, anyway."

As they all nodded in agreement, a sudden gasp echoed around. And then silence. Wiress had stopped singing. 

Valencia turned around and as she did, Katniss's arrow whizzed past her head and lodged itself into Gloss's temple, Wiress's throat slit open. Cashmere suddenly came charging around the corner, knives raised, but Johanna had already buried an axe in her chest. Finnick knocked a spear away that Brutus had thrown at Peeta, but took Enobaria's knife in his thigh. At Finnick's groan of pain, Valencia dropped the spear and unclipped a blade, flinging it forward. It was meant to lodge into Enobaria's brain, but she had seen Valencia and moved out of the way quickly. 

If it weren't for the Cornucopia, Valencia and the others could have easily killed the pair from Two, but instead, they were forced to round the horn and start to chase Brutus and Enobaria, who were sprinting down a sand strip towards the jungle. Valencia, who had picked up her spear, stopped everyone from running and brought the blade back, launching it forwards. But as she let the spear fly from her hand, the ground suddenly jerked beneath her and she was flung onto her side, her last view being Enobaria falling down with the spear in her back before sand flew into Valencia's eyes. 

The circle of land that the Cornucopia sat on began to start spinning so quickly that Valencia tasted a bit of vomit in her mouth. The weapons from the Cornucopia were flying out and Valencia had to dig her hands into the sand, dodging a scythe that threatened to behead her. Valencia felt herself begin to slip, closing her eyes as she felt her legs begin to enter the spinning water. Sand was violently hitting her, flying into her mouth as she clung onto the land for dear life. And then, they slammed to a stop. 

Coughing and feeling dizzy, Valencia slowly loosened her grasp on the sound, pulling her legs out of the water as she sat up. Everyone else had hung on, the three corpses being tossed out in the seawater. Everyone was panting as they tried to scrape the sand out of their mouths and eyes.

"Where's Volts?" Johanna asked from beside Valencia and soon, they were all on their feet trying to find Beetee. Finnick spotted him in the water, barely keeping afloat, and dived out to bring him in.

"Cover me," Katniss said as she dropped all her weapons down and ran down the closest strip where Wiress's body was. Where the coil was. 

They all watched as Katniss dove into the water, the hovercraft appearing and ready to take Wiress's body away. Valencia, Johanna, and Commie all watched, hearts thumping, as Katniss tore the wire out of Wiress's grip. They let out a discrete sigh of relief when she came swimming back with the coil in her grasp.

Finnick had gotten Beetee back and now he sat up straight as he snorted out water. Commie fixed Beetee's glasses and sent them atop the bridge of his nose whilst Katniss place the wire of his lap. It was so clean that Valencia could finally see that it was a pale golden colour.

The mood was definitely sour, Beetee lost in his own world as he began to mourn the loss of Wiress. Even Johanna and Commie had somber faces. Finnick, Johanna, and Beetee had all lost their district partners, a fact that made Valencia more protective of Commie. 

"Let's get off this stinking island," Johanna said, breaking the silence. They all got up and went to go collect their lost weapons. Valencia just needed to go and collect her machete, which was dug into the sand, everything else was still on her belt. When she heard Finnick groan in pain, she turned her head around and saw that he was clutching his thigh.

"Hey, hey," Valencia muttered as she ran over to him, giving him support. "We need to bandage that up so it doesn't get infected with whatever stuff is in here. Let me try and find something..."

As Valencia went to go off and find something to bandage his thigh, Finnick quickly took his undershirt off, showing his bare chest as he gave it to Valencia for a bandage, "Here."

"Well, that will do," she muttered, cheeks turning red as she began to inspect his wound. "It's not deep, but the bandage will stop it from bleeding."

As she started to wrap the shirt around his leg, making sure it was tight, she felt Finnick's gaze on her. She tried to not look up as she wrapped the last piece of fabric on the wound Enobaria made. Valencia hoped she had injured her when throwing that spear into her back. If it weren't for the Cornucopia spinning, she could have flown it into her head. When Valencia looked up, Finnick's sea green coloured eyes were dancing over her.

"Can you walk on it?" Valencia asked softly, not breaking eye contact.

"I think so," Finnick responded.

Valencia swallowed a lump in her throat as she stood up, holding her hand out for him to take. Maybe, Valencia thought. Maybe her heart would allow it.