The golden train whistled once, then groaned to a halt on the broken tracks of District 12. Two weeks. 2 weeks since Haymitch Abernathy, just sixteen, won the 50th Hunger Games. He had emerged defiant, unbroken, too clever for the Capitol’s liking. He’d mocked them openly: scored a single “1” in training as an insult, hurled weapons at the Gamemakers like a dare, and worst of all, used the arena against them,throwing an axe at the forcefield, letting it rebound, killing the last tribute in a flash of lightning. Brilliant. Unforgivable.

He should have died for it. But instead, they kept him alive to make an example. In the Capitol, he wasn’t treated like a victor. He was paraded like a possession. At parties, they placed him in a literal gilded cage, suspended under chandeliers like a twisted art piece. Dressed in shimmering silks he couldn’t move in, he was fed delicacies through the bars as Capitol guests cooed and laughed at him like he was some exotic pet. Behind closed doors, they broke him. Electrodes to his temples. Needles in his spine. Whippings until his back was more blood than skin. Hallucinogens, sleep deprivation, the device burning at the base of his skull, Snow’s personal gift. Every shock was a lesson: smile when told, obey when commanded, bleed when ordered. Then came the real punishment. His family. His mother and Sid gone, burned alive in their home. And Lenore Dove, sweet Lenore, who had kissed him with trembling hands before the Reaping, who had waited for him in the meadow, who had left gumdrops behind like a promise. He had gone to her, hollow but smiling, thinking maybe they could run, maybe there was still something worth saving. But the gumdrops waiting for her were poisoned. He hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Her soft brown eyes had clouded with confusion as her lips turned red with blood. Snow’s message was clear: disobedience will cost you everything.

Now, in his marble palace in Victor’s Village, velvet curtains draped in silence, he had no one left to fill the rooms. Just ghosts. Just him and the bottle.

That night, Haymitch jolted awake with a scream. The sheets tangled around his legs. His chest heaved, sweat plastering his shirt to his scarred skin. The nightmare clung to him, tributes collapsing in the arena during the bloodbath, the forcefield humming, Sid reaching through the flames, Lenore falling in the meadow, crimson sugar staining her lips. He pressed his palm to his eyes, trying to block it all out, but it wouldn’t leave him. Nothing ever left him.

“Haymitch.”

His head jerked up. She was there. The ghost of Lenore Dove. Standing at the foot of his bed hauntingly, bathed in the pale spill of moonlight. Her hair hung loose, her eyes the same soft brown,but darkened with anger, betrayal. Her lips were stained red, dripping with poisoned sweetness.

“You didn’t stop me,” she said, her tone low, venomous. “You let me die.”