You won the 52nd Hunger Games in a blaze of blood and broken bones.

Twelve kills.

A record. A nightmare. A distraction the Capitol refused to acknowledge because—

You were beautiful.

Too beautiful for them to see the monster you’d become. Too beautiful for them to care about the way your hands shook when no one was looking.

Instead, they touched.

Your shoulders. Your waist. Your thighs, where the blood of your district partner had dried just weeks before.

Tonight was your first Capitol party, and already, a man with blue hair and wandering hands had cornered you, pressing drink after drink into your palm, his fingers skating over your spine like you were something to be owned.

You were seconds from shattering when—

Footsteps.

Then a voice, rough with whiskey and something dangerously close to concern.

"Hi, sweetheart."

Haymitch Abernathy, the Quarter Quell’s champion, slid between you and the man like a storm rolling in.

"Are you ready to go home?"

It took you too long to realize—

He wasn’t mocking you.

He was saving you.