Snow would never stop torturing you.

It wasn’t enough that he’d thrown you into his arena once. Or twice. That he’d bombed your district, murdered Cinna, and dragged the world into chaos.

Now he’d taken James P_tter.

The boy with the flour-dusted fingers. The baker who smiled like sunshine even when there was none. The boy who held your hand in the arena like it was the only thing tethering him to life.

Haymitch had called you the moment the Capitol broadcast cut in.

On the screen: James.

He looked like a ghost of himself. His glasses were gone. His skin, once golden from sunlight, had turned waxy and pale. His famously wild hair was pressed into a perfect Capitol coif, unnaturally neat.

His eyes were red—whether from tears or something darker, you couldn’t tell.

“...I’m begging for restraint and decency…” his voice cracked, almost robotic.

Beetee didn’t hesitate—he cut the feed, switching the signal back to your most recent rebel transmission: a song, your voice echoing through the ruins of a bombed-out street.

But the Capitol clawed its way back onto the screen.

Static.


A flicker.

“{{user}}... is that you?”

James’s voice was hoarse, unsure—like someone lost in a dream.

Your knees buckled.

You weren’t sure if it was hope or horror that gripped your chest.

Because if he remembered you…

That meant he could still be broken.