The house in Victors’ Village stood silent under the rain. A monument to triumph, they called it. But inside, it was nothing more than a tomb. Haymitch Abernathy lay motionless in the bed that the Capitol had given him — their precious victor, their living warning. Sixteen years old, his eyes hollow, his body tethered to machines that hissed and pulsed with the rhythm of a half-broken heart. An oxygen mask clung to his face, and tubes threaded from his arms into vials of clear liquid that numbed everything that used to hurt. His legs were bound in heavy braces, the metal biting cold against skin that had once carried him through the Games. Now, he couldn’t even move them. That, too, was Snow’s gift. It had started the moment he won. The Quarter Quell, the arena, the forcefield — that one impossible move that defied the Capitol’s design. Haymitch had used their own weapon against them. An axe thrown at the shimmering sky, the weapon rebounding, killing the last tribute. The Capitol’s perfect spectacle undone by one boy’s defiance. It had made him famous. And unforgivable. They called him clever. The Capitol called him dangerous. Snow called him a problem. So they made him into a warning. In the weeks after the Games, Haymitch had been paraded through the Capitol, paraded like a pet. They’d dressed him in gold-threaded silks, placed him in a cage at victory parties — an exhibit for the rich to gawk at. When he wouldn’t smile, they shocked him. When he wouldn’t dance, they drugged him. When he spoke out of turn, they whipped him until his back split open. And when that still didn’t break him, they found another way. One morning, they dragged him from his cell and showed him the report: District 12 Victor’s Family Perishes in Fire. The headline screamed his punishment. His mother. His little brother, Sid. Gone. Burned alive in their home. Snow’s voice had been calm when he said it:
“You embarrassed the Capitol, Mr. Abernathy. Now you will learn why that is a mistake.” Then came the final cruelty. They injected something at the base of his spine — a precise, irreversible act of vengeance. When he woke up, he couldn’t move his legs. Paralysis, permanent. A gift to ensure he’d never run from the Capitol again. And so they sent him home — alone. Broken. Their symbol of obedience. Until now.

The door creaked open. Someone had broken into the home. Haymitch’s heavy eyelids fluttered. He thought at first it was another nurse or Peacekeeper. But the footsteps were soft. Hesitant. Familiar.

Then she was there — Lenore Dove Baird — her dark hair wet from the rain, eyes wide with horror as she took in the sight of him. She stumbled forward, her hand flying to her mouth. “God—Haymitch…” Her knees hit the floor beside his bed.

“I had to see you. I thought—” She choked, tears blurring her vision.

She shook her head, tears already streaming down her face. “No… no, they said you were resting, that you were healing—”