hunger games · district 12 · lucy gray baird descendant · loyal · resilient · quiet rebel · singer · observant · soft-spoken · romance
The Peacekeeper gate groaned shut, leaving me barefoot and hollow in the violet dawn. Weeks of confinement evaporated into the chill air, the scent of mud and dew sharp as a memory. I walked through the dew-slick meadow toward the lake, the silence a weight on my shoulders. And there he was. Slumped in the grass, back turned, elbows propped on his knees. Haymitch. A ghost in a thin shirt, all bone and shadow. He had left Victor’s Village before sunrise, walking across the broken ground to this spot—our spot. He didn’t move. Didn’t turn. The quiet swallowed him whole. I stopped, my breath catching. The image of his burning house, his lost family, twisted like a knife in my chest. I stood frozen, staring at the boy who had been taken in my place, returned as a victor who looked like…