Please give me that.

It was for you.

We made it together.

They will help us.

I will go then.                

When will they come?

Where are you from?

What did you do?

Where are we going?               

When will you arrive?

It's your turn.

They can use that.

It belongs to them.

Do you see them?

They could be right.

Who called for me?

Please go right now!

How was your day?

I remembered your number.

These belong to me.

Does this happen often?

I almost had it..

Can we work together?

Just follow the pattern.

What's the hold up?

Can we be friends?

These are my friends.

You've changed.

You still haven't changed.

That was easy.

Please close the door.

Are you done yet?

Can you please wait?

I'm very tired.

Who else is coming?

Did you believe them?

Will we meet again?

What did you expect?

That isn't my work.

This is private property.

We'll come back later.

You look very pretty.

Is that seat taken?

Someone broke my window!

Actually, you were right.

Who’s that over there?

You’re very sorry? Why?

Can you hear me?

You must get up.

You must go quickly.

Go on now, quickly!

I can’t find it.

They're an hour late.

It’s very late now.

Can I help you?

Can you hurry, please?

There’s nothing to see.

What did you say?

Are you completely mad?

You’ll have to apologize.

This weather is horrible.

I am still here.

Tomorrow I’ll be free.

The war has ended.

You can’t always win.

You can tell me.

"The blood is life... and it shall be mine"

Fedora looked at Vanessa while she read, took in how she sat, how she moved her lips while speaking. Listened to the intensity in her voice, to the poem she had picked out. It was quite a dark one, very much up her own alley. Fedora was drawn to the monsters, to the darkness after all. That was where she belonged, even though she could walk during the day. She preferred the night. The night was when all of her darklings came out to play after all. Where one could more easily get away with murder. As Vanessa finished up the poem, she stayed quiet for a moment longer before saying, "I like that poem, makes you think about some of your choices."

"I like to read novels, long stories, the darker the better. I just read 'The Woman in white', it's about a woman in danger and her friends who are trying to save her." When their eyes met, she just looked back, not looking away from Vanessa at all. In fact, a little smile appeared before she said, "I also like to hunt."

“I’ve not read that one,” she said softly, a faint smile touching her lips. “I’ll have to find it.”

Books had always been her refuge, sanctuaries bound in paper and ink. It was so easy to lose herself between the pages, to forget for a time the silence that crept through the house at night, the kind that pressed against the walls and whispered in the corners. When the world went still, when there were no footsteps in the hall and the streets outside lay empty, that was when she trusted herself least. Her mind. Her body.

She had always been drawn to the dark. Perhaps it had always been drawn to her, too. Like lovers locked in some terrible waltz, circling, chasing, retreating, but never truly apart. The whispers never ceased. Nor the thoughts. And no amount of prayer, fervent and trembling though it was, had ever banished them.

“Hunt,” she repeated, her gaze distant, thoughtful. “How wonderful. What do you hunt?” A faint, wistful note entered her voice. “I’ve never had the pleasure myself, though I’ve heard countless tales from Sir Malcolm. Europe, Africa… so many wild places filled with things one can’t quite name.”

(the line between mercy and murder is thinner than most think.)

𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃

“Don’t flinch now — you wanted to see what I’m capable of.”

“You’ve got that look in your eyes again — the one that means someone’s going to bleed.”

“We could walk away, but you and I both know we won’t.”

“I told you not to follow me into the dark. Now you’re in it.”

“You talk about peace, but your hands are already shaking for the fight.”

“Some people fight for justice. I just fight because I don’t know how to stop.”

“You’re trembling. Are you afraid of me, or of what you might do next?”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐈𝐓𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅

“Your blood looks beautiful under moonlight.”

“Do you still think I’m human?”

“You could’ve run, but instead you stood there and watched.”

“Every hit you take makes me wonder if you’re trying to lose on purpose.”

“Don’t you dare look away — I want you to remember this.”

“I told you, pain is the only language I’m fluent in.”

“It’s not rage anymore. It’s ritual.”

“You called me a monster. I’m just living up to it.”

“How long have you been waiting for me to break like this?”

“Don’t pretend this isn’t what you came for.”

𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇 & 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

“It’s quiet now. Too quiet.”

“You’re hurt. I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”

“I can’t tell if I’m shaking from guilt or adrenaline.”

“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”

“We’ve both got blood on our hands — mine just hasn’t dried yet.”

“I thought I’d feel better after it was done… but I don’t.”

“The world won’t remember what we did, but it will feel it.”

“We crossed a line we can’t come back from.”

“I don’t know which scares me more — what I did, or how easy it was.”

𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 & 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐘

“You’re bleeding. Let me — please — just let me help you.”

“Don’t touch me. Not after what you saw.”

“You keep looking at me like I’m still worth saving.”

“We’re both killers in different ways.”

“I hate that you make me gentle after I’ve been cruel.”

“Every time I wash the blood away, I see your face instead.”

“You should run from me. You should’ve run a long time ago.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be you. It was never supposed to be you.”

𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 & 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒

“I wasn’t born like this. Something made me this way.”

“Every scar is a story, and mine are written in other people’s names.”

“Do you believe in redemption? I don’t.”

“You see violence — I see survival.”

“Sometimes I dream of the ones I’ve killed. Sometimes they talk back.”

“I stopped counting after fifty.”

“It wasn’t about vengeance anymore — it was about habit.”

“You wanted a hero. All I had left was the blade.”

“The blood doesn’t bother me. The silence after does.”

Radiating optimism. Annie’s aching cheeks are forced to carry another smile upon command advised under Finnick’s watchful eye, attempting to make it more dazzling for the public eye despite her stomach tying itself into countless knots. “ I’m that obvious, huh…? ” Was her voice audible enough for Finnick to catch, yet low for any listening ears to miss? Like his?

So many rules… they made Annie dizzy, nauseous at the thought of engorging on the decadent display of food and drink only to pitch it and repeat. She tries not to let her distaste show on her face, expressive and tragic, a fish out of water… called out in her interview and the exact way she felt. But perhaps… a mermaid waiting to be unleashed, the enticing tagline to gain interest.

“No, not obvious,” he says with a small laugh, the kind that hides more than it shows. They find her cute, endearing, and she is, but Finnick knows better. She’s clever, capable, far more than the Capitol would ever understand. Still, this place… It’s like swimming with sharks while bleeding. One wrong move and you’re marked, trapped in someone else’s story. The bait’s always glittering, always sweet, until it isn’t. By the time you realize you’ve taken it, it’s already too late.

“We’ve already started something,” he says, a half-smile tugging at his mouth. “And with me by your side, well… they’re probably already spinning tales. Nothing official, of course, just the usual gossip. I’m hard to tie down, so they keep trying.” He lets the words linger, and for a moment, something softer flickers in his eyes, something he hides as quickly as it appears. No one else should ever see him look at her like that.

She had met Vanessa not that long ago, but there had been an instant connection like kindred spirits of a kind. Fedora's curiosity was piqued about her; there was just something going on there, something just underneath the surface. She had been about to leave, but turned around at Vanessa's words, a small smile playing on her lips. "I suppose I can stay a little bit longer." She sat back down in the chair, leaning towards Vanessa. "Can you read me your favorite poem?"

Vanessa knew most of his poems by heart, yet tonight she lingered over one that had lately returned to her mind with uninvited persistence, A Poisoned Tree. Her voice, low and spectral, carried through the room until the final line faded into silence.

He's too close; it disorients her. There are plenty of people who are beautiful at a distance only for the reality of their humanness to sharpen the nearer they came. Edward only seems to become more beautiful, more perfect. Less another high school student and more an angel.

She has enough trouble being quick on her feet without the distraction of him.

Common sense, and the blooming crush in her chest, says she should take his offer. Her brain, and the blooming crush in her chest, tells her to reject it. Being in the same enclosed space with him? Surely she'd stop breathing altogether, or somehow otherwise embarrass herself.

“Know your truck?” he repeats, then laughs, a wide, easy smile, rare for him, certainly not something he does at school. “Everyone knows your truck. Hard to miss. Very… unique.” Even the other students could spot it from a mile away, just as they could spot her.

“And no, it’s on my way. My car is close by.” His smile lingers as he starts across the parking lot toward where he’d parked that morning. Alice would have known the decision he’d made, so the rest could find their own way home, not that they really needed a car, but it was part of blending in, even if he wasn’t entirely sure they were doing it convincingly.

He unlocked the car and opened the passenger door, waiting for her. As soon as she slid inside, he closed the door behind her and got in on the other side. The engine hummed to life, and soon they were leaving the school parking lot behind.

And isn't that the horror of it all?

When she'd been thrown so unceremoniously into the past - landing in a foreign world decades before her own - she'd thought of little but survival, of clawing her way back to her own time. The job had been a necessity, a means to keep her afloat while she researched and researched. Stumbling across him in Borgin and Burkes had rattled that plan so severely she'd stumbled back to her tiny one-bedroom in muggle London, trembling with all the fright of seeing a ghost.

Only, what she thought she'd known of him was just a scratch at the surface. More than anybody else of this time, and yet so little it kept him a stranger. And with her curiosity piqued and his obsessive interest, they'd been moths to a flame. Helpless to deny the blinding light of each other.

He brought out the worst in her. The dark, shameful parts. The one that longed for knowledge, for power. The one that sought to crush the very worst rules of this world beneath heel. The one that wanted retribution against those that wronged her and those she cared for. He nurtured these parts of her. And in turn she coaxed out the best that still remained in him. Not yet snuffed out by ripping his soul into so many pieces it could never hope to be stitched back together.

She fell in love with a monster. And the monster loved her back. Even if both of them were often left marvelling at the other not understanding the peculiarities of themselves that they didn't share.

His fingers are cold against her wrist, her pulse thrumming beneath the pad of his thumb, wand held level, an extension of both of them in that moment. His lips brush her ear, and she shivers. The devil on her shoulder. The beautiful hum of temptation murmured low in her ear.

Why should she feel conflicted? Yaxley would do worse to her if given the chance had done worse to other muggleborns. It's why he kneels before them now, silenced and bound, fear in his dull, dishwater eyes. It feels powerful. To have him like this and to know he'd never thought it possible for a mudblood to best him.

He smiles at her words, smiles at the little lines she has drawn in the sand, as if they give her control, as if they make her feel superior, inflicting torment, manipulating life rather than ending it. In truth, death is mercy, but he says nothing of that. He will allow his sweet little Hermione her illusions, for now. She may pretend, or attempt to pretend, to escape the inevitable, but sooner or later, she will understand the full measure of what she is capable of.

Tom does not move away. He merely steps aside, placing himself at her side rather than before her. Yaxley looks at him as though he might be saved, how utterly foolish. That alone would have been sufficient to seal his fate, as if Tom would ever offer mercy. All of them are expendable; the only distinction between Yaxley and the other Knights is usefulness. And worse, he has grown arrogant, drawing attention to himself. Speaking of secrets that should have remained buried.