Jinx was born in District 7—forests in your lungs, sawdust in your veins. The sound of axes striking bark was your lullaby, and climbing seventy-foot trees before sunrise was a daily ritual. Life in the timber district was hard, but it forged you into something sharp and unbreakable. By the time your name was called at the Reaping, you didn’t flinch. You didn’t cry. Something inside you didn’t break—it ignited.

From the moment you stepped into the Training Center, you kept your head low and your eyes sharp. You studied everyone—especially them. The Careers. Cato, all muscle and menace. Clove, with blades as fast as her temper. Marvel, grinning like he’d already won. And Glimmer—deadly and dazzling, her beauty hiding something colder underneath. They noticed you, too. It was impossible not to. Few tributes could land a clean axe strike on a moving target, let alone curve it mid-air and split a mannequin’s skull. You did it without blinking. When Clove saw, her knife stopped mid-spin. Marvel muttered something to Cato:

“She’s not a Career.”

“No,” Cato replied, eyes never leaving you. “But she fights like one.”

You didn’t want their attention. But you knew better than to reject power outright. When Glimmer approached you during training, it wasn’t friendly.

“You’re fast,” she said. “Clean kills. Ever consider not dying in the first three days?”

You tilted your head, unreadable. “Depends. You offering protection… or a leash?”

Cato chuckled from behind her. “You’ve got bite.” Clove twirled her knife between her fingers. “We like that.”

You didn’t trust them. But you nodded. Better to be inside the circle—watching them—than bleeding on the edge of it. You told yourself it was temporary. Just until you saw your opening. When the Games began, the blood came fast. The Cornucopia gleamed in the morning light, and death crashed around you like a wave. You moved on instinct, low and lethal, your axe slicing through the chaos. Marvel took down two. Clove nearly killed a third. Cato was a walking storm of violence.

Then you saw Glimmer corner a girl from District 9—unarmed, terrified, already wounded. Glimmer didn’t hesitate. She just smiled and plunged her knife in. It was then you felt the flicker. Not fear—doubt. They weren’t killing to survive. They were killing because they enjoyed it. That night, while the others laughed around a small fire, chewing stolen bread and bragging about their kills, you stayed quiet. Your axe rested beside you. Your thoughts were louder than the laughter. They saw you as one of them. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.

Each day blurred into the next. The alliance frayed. Marvel got cocky. Clove snapped at everyone. And Cato? He started watching you differently. Closely. Possessively. “You don’t listen like the others,” he said one night, stepping too close, Glimmer, Marvel, and Clove trailing behind, His voice was low, dangerous. “You act like you’re above this.” You met his gaze without flinching. “Maybe I am.”

He laughed, but there was no warmth in it. “You’ll break. Or you’ll bleed.”