We march throughout the rubble that used to be the outskirts of the Capitol, Cressida talking softly as we do. "I've never seen this place so empty."

"Just keep your eyes open," Boggs stands at the front, holo in hand. He has it in front of him like a radar, and it's beeping. This is when I realise another thing. The holo can track pods, and will most likely beep fast (like a metal detector) when one is near.

We continue to walk until finally (I don't know why I'm so eager) the holo starts to beep. "We got a pod," Boggs clarifies. "Stay covered. Throw through these two buildings."

It takes me a second to realise that he's talking to me. He wants me to set the pod off without anyone (except an axe) getting hurt. Boggs also gestures to Cressida, who starts getting Castor and Pollux ready to film. I sigh. I'll never escape the cameras. "When you're ready Willow."

I pull out a normal axe and aim it. "Hold it, Pollux tighter," Cressida instructs, looking through a camera herself.

I roll my eyes as she gives me the signal, then I let the axe go. It sets off a wall of fire just before the two buildings.

So this is what pods do.

And it isn't pretty.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

In the next few hours, everyone gets tired, so Boggs calls it a day and we go to rest in a safe place that Cressida knows of.

Gale, Katniss and I sit together. "I don't think we can get across this," Katniss says honestly. Gale's filled her in on the whole we-abandon-troop-and-kill-Snow plan.

"We can't go anywhere without that holo," I purse my lips, handing my brother a flask of water which I had just drank from. "And we can't get it off him when he's awake."

"Make sure the three of us are on the same watch tonight," Gale plans. I still don't know how I'm feeling about them crashing my plan, but I honestly can't think about that right now.

Suddenly, we hear the sound of a vehicle being drove towards our hideout. "Is that peacekeepers?" Holmes asks, but somehow, I know it's not.

"Four-five-one to base," Jackson calls on her radio. "We've got a truck coming in from the south, over."

She waits a few seconds before a reply comes. I don't hear it through all the static but she does, because the next thing she says relaxes all of us. "Stand down, everyone. It's friendly."

Gale, Boggs, Finnick and I head outsiders to see what the truck is bringing in. More like who.

Because if there's something I didn't expect, it's for Austin Thatcher to jump out of the back.

"The fuck...?" I mutter under my breath.

He has two guards behind him, but still, I take an axe in my hand, ready to strike if the moment is right.

At some point the guard stops, and Austin just blindly stumbles towards us, muttering something I can't hear. I get ready to throw-

"Okay, stop!" Gale shouted to me, throwing his arms out to obscure my throwing range. range.

"Hold up," Finnick walks forward a step. "Everyone relax."

"What's he doing here?" Gale says what everyone is thinking.

Boggs turns to Jackson, who's recently joined us outside and says two words, "cuff him," then walks back inside.

I still have my axe at the ready.

Austin's now standing on the spot as Jackson approaches him. "Soldier this is just for caution, okay?" He doesn't do anything to acknowledge it.

I lower my weapon, heading inside. But not before I get a lady glance at him. And for a second, I see a flicker of love on his face.

He's still in there. The person I once loved. And he's fighting. He's fighting to try and love me again. Like I love him. Because I realise, that even though I was going to throw an axe in his chest, I still do.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

Boggs calls Coin, trying to figure out what is actually going on. Finally, twenty five minutes later, he gets off it, and tells us in a flat voice. "They want us to add him to the propos. Make sure he's on our side."

"But is he actually on our side?" I speak up.

"He's not in control of himself," Gale shakes his head.

"Let's just get some sleep. We'll move forward a few blocks tomorrow, shoot the new footage," Boggs takes the more trusting approach.

"I say we schedule an around the clock watch on him," Jackson, who actually knows what she's talking about, says. "So the Leegs till seventeen hundred. Holmes and Mitchell till nineteen hundred..."

"Give me a watch," I impulsively say.

Jackson turns round and raises her eyebrows. "And you think that, if it came down to it, you could kill him?"

"That wouldn't be killing Austin," my face hardens. "That would be killing a Capitol mutt."

"I'm not sure that kind of comment puts you in the running for the job either, soldier," Jackson says, almost ironically.

But Boggs (the only person Jackson answers to) steps forward. "Put her in the rotation."

Then he marches outside. I go to follow him, and nobody complains.

"He's gonna try to kill me," I state when I reach him, standing about five metres away from the building we're hiding out in. "Especially with all that's going on."

Boggs, who's looking at the broken scenery, doesn't even turn around. "We'll keep him contained."

I say the thing that's on my mind the most. "Why would Coin do this?"

He turns to face me. "Here's all I know. It was Austin that she wanted rescued from the arena. She never liked you. She doesn't like anybody or anything she can't control."

"So she would put my life in danger?" Coin's obviously been plotting a lot more than I thought.

"She'd deny it, but..." Boggs obviously knows her in and out.

"What?"

"Look. One way or another this war's going to come to an end. A free election's been promised. Maybe she's starting to see you as a threat."

I laugh bitterly. "Boggs, no one in their right mind would ever choose me as a leader-"

"But you'd throw your support to somebody, would it be her?"

This question makes me falter as Boggs goes on. "If your immediate answer isn't Coin, then you're a threat. She doesn't need you around to unite anyone anymore, these propos could be done without you. There's only one thing you can do now to add more fire to this rebellion."

I look down.

"Die."

"But Willow, that's not gonna happen on my watch," Boggs promises. "I'm planning for you to have a long life."

"Why? You don't owe me anything," I tilt my head.

Boggs looks me in the eye. "Because you've earned it."

☘︎☘︎☘︎

That night, Gale and I land ourselves on the same watch. However, he knows I'm not going, he knows I can't leave now.

"We've been here before, you know."

I look down and see Austin, looking up at me, talking to me. "What?" I ask.

"That look. I've seen that look," he sits up. "You're trying to decide whether you should kill me or not."

"I never wanted to kill you," I look away. "And that's not what I'm doing."

"I saw it with my own eyes. In the first games."

"In the first games I thought you were trying to help the careers kill me," I curl my lip. "After that I always saw you as a... an ally."

That's what Nina, or Foxface, first called me. But now, if she was still alive, I would see her as a friend. An ally is never a permanent arrangement. Sooner or later they turn to friend. Or foe.

Austin clearly agrees as he looks to some point in the distance. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Fiance. Enemy. Target. Mutt. And now ally? Yeah I'll add that to the list of words I try to use to figure you out!"

It takes me a second to realise that Gale's been listening to this entire conversation when he speaks up. "You need to figure yourself out, Austin. Before you can begin to figure out Willow."

Finnick, too, comes to join the fun as he sits up a moment later. Austin looks down. "I'm sorry. I just- I can't tell what's real, and what's made up anymore."

"Then you should ask, Austin," Finnick's voice is quite rough. "It's what Annie does."

"Ask who?"

"Us," Gale answers. "We're your unit now."

But 'ask us' turns into 'ask Willow' as he turns straight to me. "Your favourite colour is blue. Is that real?"

I nod, looking down with teary eyes. "Yeah. Real. Yours is orange. Not a bright orange, a soft one. Like the sunset."

"Thank you," he nods subtly to me.

Suddenly, I'm overcome with a feeling I can't explain. I want to tell him everything about himself. "You're a painter. You're a baker. You always sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. You always double knot your shoe laces."

I look down, a tear dripping down my face. "You were all right," I say, putting my hand on Gale's arm to help me up. "I can't do this. I can't kill him."

I go and sit beside Katniss, who rouses at the sobs I'm trying to keep quiet. "Guess we're not leaving anymore."

I give her the evasive, long worded answer. "We're not going anywhere without that holo."

☘︎☘︎☘︎

"Listen up!" Boggs shouts. He shows us a gun with no bullets in it. "Mag's empty. It's only for the propo."

He slots it in and gives the gun to Austin, who seems reluctant to take it. Like he knows he could kill me with it. Like he knows he's not in control of himself but can't help it.

"Let's move," Boggs interrupts my thoughts. "We're headed five blocks north."

We march throughout empty, evacuated streets, Boggs at the front, holding the holo out as a detector in front of him. I'm close behind him, and everyone else is at least six paces behind us. I hear Finnick and Austin talking behind me, but I can't hear what they're saying.

"Boggs," Cressida finally says, after we've been walking for forty minutes. "This is a good spot."

He nods. "I'll check its clear first."

We climb down stone steps and are just about to go in-between a gap between two houses, it starts to beep. "Got a pod," Boggs tells us as if we didn't already know. "Split."

Some of us go one side, I go the other. I kneel down beside Cressida and Gale as Boggs shouts "stay back!" whilst grabbing a rock from the ground. He swiftly chucks it in.

Two big machine guns come out of the walls and start firing like crazy at thin air. This isn't a slow death, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

Rubble blows everywhere as the attack finally stops and the guns retreat back into the wall again.

Boggs steps out first. "All clear! Gale, Holmes, with me! Leegs take the wings!"

As the five of them go to check everything out, I see Austin, and even though he still isn't sane, my heart breaks for him. He's holding the gun close, muttering random things and crying. Crying hard. He bashes his head into the gun a couple of times. As if he's trying to forget.

And then the bomb goes off beyond us, and I see Gale, Holmes and the Leegs all circling around something.

It's a convulsing Boggs, lying flat on the ground. Legs blown off.