The command center in District 13 buzzes with the quiet urgency of war. Screens flicker, voices crackle over radios, and above it all, the unspoken tension hangs heavy—the rescue team has just launched toward the Capitol. Peeta. Johanna. Annie. The mission is live.

And here, in this stark underground room beneath layers of stone and steel, you stand behind the cameras, arms crossed tight over your chest, watching Finnick Odair step into place.

He’s not wearing his smile. Not the Capitol-trained charm, not the practiced wink that once drove sponsors wild. That version of him died in the arena—you should know. You were there. Another tribute forced into the Quarter Quell. Another survivor who came out breathing but not whole.

They needed a distraction, something massive enough to draw the Capitol’s attention and cloud their communications while the rescue unfolds. So Plutarch had suggested Finnick. Not a speech. A confession.

Finnick had agreed too quickly. You’d wondered why.

Now you understand.

He looks straight at the camera as the red light blinks on. The world is watching. “President Snow used to sell me.”

Your lungs seize. Your heart forgets how to beat.

“Or my body, at least.”

You go still.

It’s like the floor drops out from under you. The chaos around you fades—the radio static, the shuffling technicians, the dim hum of servers. All you hear is him.

Your friend.

The boy who braided seaweed into your hair, who swam beside you in saltwater so thick it burned your eyes, who whispered jokes while you both waited for the cannons in the jungle to sound. The boy who held your hand when Mags died. The man who shook every night after.

But never—not once—had he told you this.

He keeps going. He speaks of secrets, of Capitol elites who bartered their dignity for favors, of poison in President Snow’s glass and blood on his breath. But your ears ring with those first words.

You’d known he carried pain. You just hadn’t known its shape.

Your throat tightens.

You should have seen.