The Victor’s Village is too quiet.

No weeping families. No children playing in the streets. Just twelve empty houses and the one they shoved Haymitch Abernathy into, as if a fancy roof and silk sheets could make up for the blood on his hands.

You don’t knock. He never answers anyway. Instead, you push open the door and step into the stifling silence, the air thick with the scent of liquor and something else—something rotting.

He’s sitting on the floor when you find him, slumped against the couch, bottle dangling from his fingers. His shirt is wrinkled, stained. His eyes are bloodshot, dark bruises beneath them, his expression as empty as the house around him.

“You reek,” you say, not unkindly, dropping the bag of bread and cheese on the table. “Have you eaten today?”

He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Why? You think I need to keep my strength up?” He gestures around him, to the untouched furniture, to the Capitol’s gifts meant to soften the blow of Haymitch's mother, younger brother, and his girl Lenore Dove were killed by President Snow as punishment for Haymitch's perceived act of defiance in the Hunger Games, where he used the arena's force field to his advantage, making the Capitol look foolish. “For what?”

You sigh, crossing your arms. “For yourself.”

He scoffs, finally looking at you—really looking. And you can see it now, the weight pressing down on him, the grief that’s been swallowing him whole since the moment he stepped out of that Arena.

“They killed her,” he rasps. Not a drunken slur, not a sarcastic drawl. Just raw, broken truth. “They killed them all.”

You don’t say her name. You don’t need to. He barely said it before, only in whispers, only when no one else was listening. But you knew. Everyone knew.

You kneel beside him, close enough to see the tremor in his hands. “And they wanted to kill you too,” you remind him. “But they didn’t.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he mutters, the fight draining from his voice. “I’m not some broken thing you can fix.”