HAYMITCH

I spent the whole night thinking about the events of the day. All tributes holding hands, well except for one who folded her arms, the chaos that followed, the public outrage at Katniss's "pregnancy", Cinna's open and direct challenge to the Capitol. Damn! this was going to bring serious consequences to him, and yet I knew it was his way of keeping the flame of rebellion burning. Despite all this, the one thought who occupied most of my mind was Leila. How the hell was I going to prevent her from fulfilling her goal? I couldn't let them die, not after all we'd been through together. I know I promised Katniss and Peeta to save the other, but whatever it took I would get them both out of that arena alive.

I had already said goodbye to the kids last night, for a moment I hesitated to tell them about the plan but I refrained. The less they knew the better, it's for their safety. I thought about my encounter with Leila in the elevator, I didn't understand why she had decided to give me that message, if her goal was to kill them. I thought about how she suddenly stared at me, frowned, and touched her fingertips to her lower lip. That lip that no longer showed any sign of having been hurt. I felt something connect in my head. Gratitude! I handed her my handkerchief to cover her wound, maybe that's why she gave me a warning / advice. But it was a little crazy to think that she wanted to self-sabotage. I didn't understand her. A memory came to mind, something that happened 8 years ago, on Leila's victory tour in the 12th district.

"My preparation team arrived two hours early to "help" me get ready to receive this year's winner. Leila Brightlock. The brat who poisoned the rabbit that killed my boy. I was supposed to be at the mayor's house at 6:00 p.m. to celebrate a dinner in her honor. She had been in the district all day, by this time she must have already given her speech in front of the people, honoring the dead tributes. What a joke for their families! Every year I refused to attend that event, however, they forced me to attend the dinner presided over by the mayor. I was ready and drunk enough to deal with this tedious night. I could already imagine the brat bragging about her triumph, and comparing her technique to past victors, perhaps she would talk about all the "pretty clothes" she had gotten thanks to the "wonderful" Capitol.

After the formal greetings, we were invited to come to the table. They sat me next to the brat. Great! I'm going to need at least one more bottle to put up with her. Looking around I noticed something unusual. Woof and Cecelia were not among the guests. The escort from District 8, who was sitting on the other side of the brat, seemed to notice my doubt and answered me, speaking to the entire table.

"Unfortunately Cecelia could not accompany us, you know she was pregnant in these games and well now she is too advanced in her state to make the trip through all the districts. As for Woof, apparently he is sick, and well, it would not be a good idea for him to accompany us in those conditions." she finished saying happily with her annoying capitol accent. Suspicious, not because of Cecelia, but because of Woof. Normally they would have forced him to come and heal him on the way.

After this they started to bring the duck entrees. I was very surprised not to hear the brat say a word. She only dedicated herself to smiling and nodding or denying if someone asked her something. I also noticed that under the table she only spent her time smoothing the invisible wrinkles of her horrendous metallic dress.

Conversation at the table was still lively, especially since it was monopolized by the prep teams and stylists. If only Woof were here, we would share a few drinks and jokes hidden at the expense of these imbeciles. When the main course arrived, I noticed that the brat was looking more and more nervous. Suddenly I saw how cautiously and quite discreetly she kept the table knife in her dress. But what the hell was she planning to do? attack us all? I became tense and alert. However, she apologized to those present, to go to the bathroom. I couldn't help but do it. I also got up to go to the bathroom or rather follow her. I don't know what I expected to find but definitely not this. Leila was crying uncontrollably trying to get the sleeves off her dress and she was doing it with the knife. She was trying to kill herself, but her dress was like armor. I approached her quickly, taking her by surprise. We started fighting over her knife, and she was still crying.

"Just give me that," I growled.

"NO, LEAVE ME" she yelled at me. If we continued with this scandal, someone might find out, and I didn't want to think about the consequences. I kept fighting with her but the brat was strong. So against my principles, I pushed her with all my strength and she fell on the floor, against the wall. At least I had the knife in my hands, I put it quickly in my jacket. I thought that she would get up to continue fighting but no, she remained sitting on the floor and then she began to violently and repeatedly hit her head against the wall while she frantically repeated

"I killed them, I killed them all, I didn't want to. I killed them, killed them" madness was reflected in her features. She was losing her mind. I lunged to stop her from hitting herself and she started to struggle again as she sobbed uncontrollably.

"Calm down, everything will be fine, shhh shhh"I tried to reason

"No, I killed them, I killed the boy, remember with the trap" she told me desperately "kill me, no one will blame you, I deserve it, just do it-"she began to beg me

"No, I won't. You have to calm down, someone is going to come at any moment" I didn't know what else to say, in the end the brat was right, she had killed him, and I wasn't going to deny that the desire for revenge crossed my mind more than once. But that was the way games were, someone had to die for someone else to live.

"I can't do this anymore" she sobbed "please help me" Leila begged me, and she threw herself into my arms. I thought she was going for the knife but she was just hugging me. I tried to push her away but she was clinging to me crying . I let her do it and I caressed her hair trying to comfort her, maybe that way, she would let me go but she just hugged me tighter "President Snow wants me to…" Leila began to say when someone else entered the bathroom

"But what is happening here?!" Leila's escort exclaimed in horror. Varia was her name. Shit! The only thing I didn't need was that they think I was having an affair with this brat "get away from her, Haymitch!"

"For your information, that's what I'm trying to do" I answered sarcastically as best I knew how. I kept forcing the girl to let me go but Varia took the girl by the arm and forced her to let me go. She seemed even more heartbroken to see her escort here and she started to back away, like a frightened animal. Varia lunged at her and roughly grabbed her by the shoulders and began to shake her.

"You realize that your actions can have consequences for all of us!" she yelled furiously at the girl who wouldn't stop crying and looking at me with pleading eyes. "Do you want us all to be killed because of you? You didn't have enough with the number of people you killed" WOW that was a low blow. The girl began to bawl even more. "I'll clean your face and you'll go out and put on a damn smile for everyone, understood Leila?" The girl just nodded quietly without stopping sobbing. I took the decorative handkerchief out of my pocket and gave it to Leila to clean herself. She took it and looked at me again asking for help, I could only shake my head "Take this" Varia snapped once more, giving her some pills that she took out of her pocket "get out of here Haymitch" she ordered me

I didn't wait for her to repeat it to me twice, I left and returned to the table where everything was normal, no one had noticed anything. Leila was none of my business. What did she expect me to do anyway? How could I help her? It didn't matter, everyone had to deal with their own actions however they could. She's not my problem, I repeated to myself. 5 minutes later Leila and Varia showed up. Leila had a strange expression, like a mixture of nervousness and a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and her hands were trembling. The pills, of course. Varia had drugged her.

"You'll have to excuse us, our victor got a little sick from the food" Varia apologized with a polite smile.

"Yeah, I'm not used to eating these things" although Leila said it in a nervous tone. To the rest of the people present, the comment sounded rude and ungrateful.

Varia decided to revive the conversation by talking about the change of season and I don't know what else. I looked at Leila out of the corner of my eye, and I only saw her look at a fixed point on her plate. She had her shaking hands in her lap, and I don't know what prompted me to do it, but I decided to hold one of her hands in mine for the rest of dinner. I had also won my games when I was 16 years old, I also had to face the families of the boys I killed, also face the family of the girl I didn't arrive in time to save, my family and girlfriend killed because of me, yeah, the horrors I lived still haunt me in my nightmares. I couldn't judge her, she was still a child.

As soon as dessert was put out, she looked like she was having a panic attack again. she was looking at the piece of cake like it was her worst nightmare.

"oh no no, she doesn't eat any of that" Varia intervened quickly when she saw the girl's expression. The people of 12 didn't seem at all pleased with Leila's continued scorn.

"Well, I'm not going to deny myself a good piece of cake" I said, taking the cake from Leila's plate and passing it to mine with my free hand. The girl squeezed my hand and looked at me briefly in gratitude. One more hour of pleasant conversation and the evening was over. Before getting up from the table, Leila squeezed my hand once more and then left with her team."

That was the last time we spoke. From that day on, I only saw her a couple more times, and she always seemed happy, much happier with her situation. I imagine that any trauma she had was compensated for with the multiple concessions given by the Capitol. "Snow has promised her something that she has been craving for a long time... her freedom" those were the words of Plutarch. I remembered what Peeta told me a few days ago "I thought I saw her really scared, no, I'd say terrified" and I also remembered the state she was in when we saw her in the elevator. The burn marks on her body, her bruised lip, her own guards harassing her. Also how she easily fought the 23 simulations, the attacks on Katniss and Peeta and even the weird exchange between her and Mags. Finnick couldn't get any response from that, Mags just repeated what our eyes saw, that the girl was threatening her. Everything kept spinning in my head.

Suddenly something came to my head, an idea, I wasn't sure it would work but with some luck it might work. I needed to talk to Peeta, before they took him away, he was the only one who could make it work. I got out of bed and went straight to look for him, and there he was accompanied by Portia.

"I thought we had already said goodbye yesterday, Haymitch" he said, surprised to see me so early. Portia stepped back a bit giving us some privacy.

"It's never too late to say goodbye one last time, right?" I hugged Peeta as I had once done with Katniss, hiding my face in his neck and covering myself more with my arms, and quickly whispered one last instruction to him. "Listen carefully boy, Once in the arena, you have to try to put as much distance as possible between you, Katniss, and Leila. Don't let the two of them face each other, neither of you two will stand a chance against her in combat. If the inevitable happens, your best option to defeat her is to break her barriers, break her down!" Peeta tried to move away from my embrace to look at me " listen to me! Remember everything you've seen in her all these days, what you thought you saw and that you know is true, what happened in the elevator, the hatred that everyone has for her. Do not forget! This could make the difference between being killed or having the opportunity to kill her, do you understand?" He nodded and I released him, walking away " Well boy, don't forget, stay alive!"

"Are you also going to say goodbye to Katniss?" he asked me in code

"No, she wouldn't stand it, she's not very good with sentimentality and things of the heart as you well know" I hoped that with this, he would better understand what I was referring to. He nodded and continued on his way next to Portia. Now I just had to wait for the games to start and wait for Plutarch's instructions to put the plan into action.