Game of Survival- 𝕳𝖚𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗 𝕲𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖘 ✔️

28] Not What She Expected

Bex was losing her mind. She could feel it. She could feel the pieces of the jigsaw slowly slipping, she had been fine for a year. She hadn't had a blip since Enobaria in the Mentor Lounge. But just thought of going back into the arena shot her straight back to where she was.

"Did you know I had a wife?" Woof asked as he sat on his couch, Bex was sitting on the ground up against the wall. She didn't want to sit on the couch, she needed to sit on something solid, as close to the ground as possible. She just shook her head, she didn't even know that Woof had any family, he had never mentioned it, "I married her after I won. I told her that if I won, I would marry her."

"What happened to her?" Bex asked, there were so many easier ways of him telling her about his family but he was just taking the long way to distract her. Each of them had their own ways.

Cecelia and Haymitch had the same just with one cold difference. Woof's tactic was just talking.

Woof just smiled, he pulled a chain from around his neck and Bex saw that it had a ring on it, "She's still around. After I won, I was in the Capitol's eye, all the time. I couldn't escape it and she had to avoid it. She came to Eight to hide...from Snow. So we had to be smart about it. I lived here, she lives in the District."

That hurt Bex's brain, Woof's wife was still alive and she had no idea. There were only a few possible people that would be old enough to have married Woof when he was a teenager. Delila and... "Lucy. Lucy's your wife?"

Woof nodded, "Lucy-Gray Baird. She won the tenth Hunger Games in Twelve. A whole load of fuckery happened and she ran here with Rhys Snow...he mentored my sister Delila in the Tenth as well. The first Dual Win."

Bex had met them, she had met them all. Rhys and Delila, they and their family ran the fruit, veg and flower stall in the Market. She never knew their last name though, no one did. They were just Rhys and Delila, they were some of the kindest people that she had never met. But clearly something more was going on in District Eight than she was aware of.

Two Victors lived in the District. They weren't known by the Peacekeepers no one knew who they were. They were like ghosts in a sense

"Rhys had to take our name. After a few years people forgot the tenth. Forgot her name, and no one even blinked when I was reaped. Eight knew, the rest of Panem didn't."

Bex looked up at him, "What's your real name? It's not Woof."

Woof chuckled, "Everyone called me Woof because my sister couldn't pronounce my name when she a baby. It just stuck, it's William...William Dreesen. I had a son with my wife...Marcus." Woof looked directly at Bex who was just staring at the ground, "Who got married to-"

Bex cut him off, "My mom?"

Woof nodded as he stood up from the couch and lowered himself to the ground in front of Bex, sitting down with her, "I couldn't stop it. I tried. I tried so hard, Rhys pinned me down whilst Delila had Lucy and Ben. They killed my baby, my grandbabies. And then my third grandbaby came back...shattered."

Woof's heart broke slightly when he saw Bex look up at him, tears already down her face. He couldn't tell what from though, "Why didn't you tell me?...I have family, and I didn't know. You were right here, you were here on the street."

"I know. If it got out that there were more Dreesen's, that we had Lucy and Rhys. He would have come for us all. It would have risked Lucy, Delila, Rhys. Their babies and grandkids. The entire District...You. I was always here. We were all always here just...not in the way we wanted. Your mother...god Rebecca Beyard was one of the most beautiful people I've ever met, inside and out."

Bex didn't think that she had the capacity to find out anymore things, but just that name ran the alarm bells, "Beyard?" Woof's look just confirmed it and she shot up from the ground, running her hand through her hair.

She didn't know what to think. She had a family. One that was there the entire time, looking out for her and she didn't even know it, "Leith...he..." Bex hung her head and groaned in frustration, "Does Ben know?" Woof shook his head, "Did Leith know?" Another shake of the head.

Leith Beyard the reason she was alive. The reason she won her games. Was her cousin. And neither of them knew.

He could see it. He had always been able to see it. As did Cecelia and Haymitch. Woof pushed himself up from the ground and rushed over to Bex grabbing her from behind, leaning his chin on her shoulder as she let go entirely.

Lowering the pair down to the ground, he didn't let go once. And he wouldn't let her go ever again. Twenty Three years of not being who he should, he wasn't about to let her go again.

"Come on then. Hit me, hit me with everything you have, birdy."

Bex didn't even clock the name, her mind was too foggy to clock anything other than the fact she could be going back into the games. No, she was going back into the games. She didn't want to, she would rather eat glass than go back.

But it was better her than the other two.

Bex grabbed Woof's arm and leaned back into his chest. His grip on her didn't falter, it never loosened. He was there and that was all that she needed.

"Lucy was the one who came up the name birdy. Reminded her of her name. She called your mom it too." Woof told her

The old woman had always called Bex, Birdy, she had no idea where it had come from. But she never questioned it

"When you were a little girl. You, Connor and Ben used to call me pops. Lucy, Nana. We knew you, you knew us. You just don't remember it."

"I don't remember a lot of things." Bex managed to get out

Woof nodded, his head still against her shoulder, "I know. And I am so sorry I wasn't there before. I am now. We all are."

Thank you for reading

Comment and Vote :)