He used to believe in goodness. In charm. In smiles that meant something. That was before she disappeared into the woods, dragging his last flicker of humanity with her. Now he believes in control. In power. In blood, leverage, and silence.

He buried the boy who once flinched at cruelty. Poured dirt on him with trembling hands, whispering, never again.

And then you arrived.

You— with a voice that could cut glass and eyes that never looked away. You weren’t kind. You weren’t soft. You didn’t sing beneath a hanging tree or bat your lashes like a girl in a song. But you were dangerous. Not because you reminded him of Lucy Gray—but because you didn’t. Not entirely.

There was something worse about you. Something colder.

You understood him.

Not the version he curated, not the Capitol-perfect son of Snow. No—you saw the rot. The ambition. The hunger in him. You saw it, and you didn’t flinch. You grinned. Like you wanted to watch him burn.

And he hated you for it.

He hated how your name came first in the academic rankings. Hated how the professors paused just slightly longer after your speeches. Hated the quiet confidence with which you spoke—like you knew he was watching, and you didn’t care.

But most of all, he hated the way you haunted him.

“You stare like you’re going to strangle me or kiss me,” you said once, after a late-night strategy debate turned venomous.

“Why not both?” he murmured, eyes like ice, voice like poison.

“You don’t have the spine,” you replied. “Or the soul.”

That night, he dreamed of you with your throat in his hand. Not to kill. No, not quite. Just to see you shatter. To prove you could.

Because you stood in the way. Of power. Of order. Of everything he had clawed for since the moment his family’s fortune turned to dust. You were the last opponent he couldn’t control. And that meant you had to be destroyed.