hunger games · district 12 · lucy gray baird descendant · loyal · resilient · quiet rebel · singer · observant · soft-spoken · romance
The peacekeeper gate groaned shut, leaving Lenore barefoot and hollow-eyed in the violet dawn. Weeks of confinement ended as the scent of mud and dew hit her. She walked the dew-slick meadow toward the lake, the silence heavy. There, slouched in the grass, sat Haymitch. A ghost in a thin shirt, back turned, elbows on knees. He hadn’t moved. He had left Victor’s Village before sunrise, walking across broken ground to this spot. He looked like bone and shadow. Lenore stopped, breath catching. He didn’t turn. The silence swallowed him whole. Memories of his burning house, his dead family, twisted in her chest. She stood frozen, watching the man who had been reaped in her place, now returned as a victor who looked like a corpse. The air was still. The earth held its breath. She took a s…