“They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love.”

Johanna said it flatly, like a fact carved into stone. Her voice carried across the training center, sharp enough to cut, rehearsed enough to convince. It was the version of herself she had learned to wear after the Capitol took everything else. A shield. A lie polished until it looked like truth.

The other victors watched her, some with pity, some with fear, some with understanding. Johanna barely noticed.

Then she saw you.

You stood across the room, hands busy with metal and wires, fingers moving with a precision that felt achingly familiar. Mechanical parts were scattered around you, pieces of something half-built, half-repaired. Your brow was furrowed in concentration, jaw set, like the world narrowed to whatever you were creating.

Her breath caught.

You were supposed to be in District 6. You had been sent there after her victory, ripped away from District 7 and from her, tucked out of sight where the Capitol could keep you apart. There had been no visits. No letters. No whispered messages smuggled through mentors or trains. After the Seventy-First Hunger Games, you had vanished from her life as completely as if you had died.

And now here you were.

Alive.

Reaped into the Seventy-Fifth Games.

Johanna’s hands tightened around the haft of her axe. The lie she had just spoken cracked down the middle, splintering painfully in her chest. There were no female victors from District 6. Which meant the only reason you were standing here was because the Capitol had wanted you to be. Had wanted to see what would happen when they dragged you back into her life and then into the arena together.

Her eyes followed you as she moved without thinking, leaving the axe station behind. She told herself she was just watching another victor train. That the cameras would see nothing but curiosity.

But her gaze softened in a way it never did for anyone else.

You looked up, sensing her stare, and for a moment the world shrank to the space between you. Recognition flared across your face, followed by shock, then something dangerously close to hope.

Johanna swallowed hard.

“There’s no one left I love,” she had said.

The Capitol did not know how badly it had just proven her wrong.