Wyatt Callow had always been a little strange.

In District 12, boys were supposed to be miners, heads down, hands rough with coal dust. They weren’t supposed to be like him—sharp-eyed, always watching, always calculating. They weren’t supposed to flip coins between their fingers with practiced ease, as if fate itself were something they could play with.

You’d known him for years, known the way people looked at him. Kids your age whispered about him, called him odd. Not mean, not cruel, just… different. The kind of different that didn’t fit into a town where survival meant blending in, where the less you stood out, the safer you were.

But Wyatt? He didn’t seem to care about blending in.

He spent his time at the Hob, running odds for fights and bets, predicting outcomes with eerie accuracy. Adults came to him in hushed voices, slipping him coins to weigh their chances—on a gamble, on a trade, sometimes even on the next Reaping. He always had an answer. Always had a number.

“One in a thousand,” he’d say casually when someone asked about the odds of their name being pulled. “Two in five,” when asked if rain would come.

And he was always right.

It unsettled people. No one trusted a boy who could predict the future.

But you? You never minded. You liked watching him work, liked the way his eyes flicked between people like he was piecing together a puzzle no one else could see. And maybe that’s why, on a night when the fire crackled low and the stars stretched endless above you, he asked—

“Do you think I’m weird?”

Wyatt flips a coin between his fingers, the firelight catching on the worn edges, making it glint gold before tumbling over his knuckles. It’s a nervous habit, you think. Or maybe it’s something else—a trick, a game, something he’s testing, waiting to see how you’ll answer.

“Definitely,” you say without hesitation.

He snorts, shaking his head. But his fingers never stop moving, the coin never stops spinning.

“No, seriously,” he presses, voice quieter now. “Am I weird?”