Forty something years had passed since the Games chewed him up and spat out whatever they could not finish. The math no longer mattered to Haymitch Abernathy. Only that he was fifty eight now. Older than he had ever planned to be. Older than most victors ever got.

Morning arrived without asking.

He woke before dawn, tangled in blankets that felt heavier than snowdrifts, his body curled inward like it was trying to hide from itself. Cold seeped through the seams of the quilt and lodged in his bones. His back throbbed first, a deep grinding ache that radiated down into his hips and knees. His legs followed, stiff and burning, scars tightening as if they remembered being torn open and decided to relive it. Sleep had barely touched him. It never did anymore. Just fragments. Short, useless dozes that left him more exhausted than before. His breath scraped his chest on the way in. The ghosts were already there. They always were.

The room smelled wrong at first. Sweet. Artificial. Gumdrops. The sickly sugar pricked at the back of his throat, a smell that did not belong in District Twelve but lived inside him anyway. Then came the meadow sounds, insects humming softly, grass whispering as if someone were lying in it just out of sight.

“Still cold?” Lenore Dove asked.

Her voice came from the chair by the window. Too clear. Too close. She had learned how to sound real over the decades. Or maybe he had learned how to listen. Haymitch stayed still. Blankets pulled up to his chin. His hands trembled faintly beneath the covers, thin now, veins like blue strings. His hair had gone mostly gray, silver streaks cutting through what dark remained. His beard had abandoned any effort at neatness. Stubble shadowed his jaw like something unfinished.

Lenore stood and crossed the room. He could hear her steps in the meadow grass that was not there.

“You used to sleep through anything,” she said, softer now. Observant. “Cannon fire. Screaming. Me.”

She reached out.Cold brushed his cheek. Not imagined, not entirely. His skin prickled where her fingers hovered, then pressed, as though winter itself had learned the shape of her hand.

“I know,” she murmured. “I know you hurt.”

She leaned closer, bending like she used to when she wanted him to look at her. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, exactly as it had the last time he saw her alive. She smelled like wildflowers layered under the gumdrop sweetness, a cruel combination.

“You should have died younger,” she said abruptly.

The words landed without warning. He did not open his eyes.

Silence filled the room. The clock ticked somewhere behind the walls. At the edge of the bed, someone shifted. His brother Sid sat there, half formed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Sid never spoke much, even in death. His presence was quieter, heavier somehow. The mattress dipped slightly where he perched, enough that Haymitch felt it through the blankets. A familiar weight. Another cold seep. She sighed, a sound like wind moving across open ground. Meadow sounds swelled again, cicadas singing louder.

Sid leaned closer, his knee brushing Haymitch’s calf. The ache flared instantly, hot and sharp. Sid’s touch felt like frost pressed directly to bone. Lenore noticed. She always noticed.

Haymitch’s eyes stayed shut. His face remained carefully blank. Only his breath gave him away, shallow and uneven. Lenore placed her palm over his chest. The chill there slowed his heartbeat, just for a second, enough to make him shudder.