I smiled and let the conversation go.
The shock had settled into something quieter as I sat with everything Jenny and Fabian had told me. I finally knew who the woman was — the one whose ghost I'd felt in every corner of Finnick's world. His first love. And she was gone. Whatever the truth was about how it ended, she had died young, at the age when everything still felt infinite, when he had loved her most. That part was real. That part couldn't be argued.
I finally understood the look on Finnick's face whenever he held that crystal necklace. The grief that lived in his eyes in those unguarded moments — it made sense now. That kind of loss didn't just leave. It settled into a person and stayed.
His injured leg, the years of closed-off silence, the careful distance he kept from everyone — none of it was the worst thing the kidnapping had taken from him. Evelyn was.
