nikolai stands beside her, just as intrigued,   studying her like as if he is trying to deem her worthy of survival or ordinary like the others,   another cannon shot in the dark and a hopeful face in the night sky before it disappears.   “ there's something in her eyes, nik. ”   she mumbles, gaze faltering and yet still on the screen.   ishtar's ice cold gaze pierces her, even in the face of death.   “ that girl is no lamb. ”   she reaches for the elegant bar-   courtesy of capitol, not one thing missing from the feast as the mentors are supposed to be celebrating for the death of their descendants-   fingers slip around the glass of bourbon.   it burns through her throat,   and the slam of the empty crystal on metal tray echoes like a death sentence.   “ she's the butcher. ”

nik watches the young girl, only to hum his agreement as he stands close to bianca. yes, that girl has something others did not have. hunger. he thinks of snow, of the capitol, of the way they made the games more violent, more hopeful and more terrible all at once. the tragedy is that only one is meant to live; but all tragedies make good stories. and the fact that all are doomed, whether they live or not, makes for even better ones.

he knows all are doomed, even the ones who make it out, because bianca has been sleeping in his arms for years. she still wakes up, skin damp and teeth bared, a knife against the fragile skin of his throat, as if she were thrashing in the mud of the arena, as if she had never left. now that ishtar stands in her place, nikolai cannot help but be reminded of how young bianca was. how helpless she should have been.

perhaps that is why he never wakes up with fear. why, when she presses the knife, he knows to place a gentle hand against her cheek, and that when she snarls, he knows to murmur sweet words. thank fucking god for her terrible heart. "she reminds me of you." is the words he settles on as he watches her go for the bar. alcohol is the way to get through it, but he will refrain from engaging in it. today is bianca's day to tremble and it his to remain tall.

the butcher. what an accurate nickname. and yet all the girl does when the horn sounds its death sentence is run away toward the forest. he quirks a brow but says nothing. instead, he watches as she runs away from the slaughter only to find a tree. it is a tall one, and he has no idea how a small girl could possibly climb it-- and yet she does. palms bleeding, she finally settles on a branch that a fall from would mean immediate death… and again, fucking arrogant kid, she finds a camera and smiles to it, before simply sitting back against the trunk of the tree and closing her eyes. "she's going to drive them all insane." & perhaps that is why she has the slimmest chance: the kid knows who's holding the knife and who's holding the chains.

SENTENCE  STARTERS :  ALONE  WITH  YOU  IN  THE  ETHER  BY  OLIVIE BLAKE 

PART ONE, BEFORES

❛ they see you closer than you are, but you’re further from reach than either you or they can imagine. ❜

❛ what are you thinking about today? ❜

❛ maybe tomorrow, everything would be different. ❜

❛ take me home, stranger. ❜

❛ maybe we should break up. ❜

❛ you’re one of those brainy fucks, right? ❜

❛ your future self will always see what your present self is blind to. ❜

❛ cigarettes are extremely out of fashion. and they’re bad for you. ❜

PART TWO, CONVERSATIONS

❛ you’re obviously a very good liar, ❜

❛ if i were a liar, wouldn’t my lies be extremely valuable currency to me? ❜

❛ i don’t think we’re really capable of loving the things our parents love. ❜

❛ can you make this less like an interview, please? ❜

❛ the point is, you’re observing me too closely. ❜

❛ i was formerly a thief. ❜

❛ did you get the lies you came for? ❜

❛ you want to puzzle me out like a math problem. ❜

❛ crime doesn’t make a person complex, everyone has a history. ❜

❛ do you want me to leave you alone? ❜

❛ i want to see what you see. ❜

❛ are you interested in me? ❜

❛ i’m not trying to predict you. i’m trying to understand you. ❜

❛ couldn’t you predict me if you understood me? ❜

❛ i like it, your brain. ❜

❛ right, one impossibility at a time. ❜

❛ i wasn’t really thinking about you, to be honest. ❜

❛ it’s very… austere, isn’t it? ❜

❛ i could study you for a lifetime, carrying all of your peculiarities and discretions in the webs of my spidery palms, and still feel empty-handed. ❜

❛ don’t hold hands with anyone ever again. ❜ 

❛ there she is. queen of chaos. ❜  

❛ don’t worry, you’ll fit perfectly. don’t worry, there’s nothing here for you to break. ❜

❛ there, now it looks like somebody cares about you. ❜

❛ there is nothing worse than being predictable. nothing smaller than feeling ordinary. ❜

❛  so don’t speak. just stay here with me, just breathe. ❜

❛  haven’t you been paying enough attention to run? ❜

❛  don’t go, just stay. settle over me like the tide, cover me like a blanket, wrap around me like the sun.❜

❛ i think that, for someone to get close to you, you must have to give them one key at a time. and even then, only one level can be opened at once. ❜

❛ you know, it’s poor form to accuse a lady of lying all the time.❜

PART THREE, KEYS

❛ do you imagine things? Is your life a dream or a chart? ❜

❛ come closer, let’s see what happens, let’s see how the stars shine on your skin. ❜

❛ i know you’re not stupid. that’s the worst part. ❜

❛ all this time we’ve been talking and you’ve been syncopating your breath to mine and your pulse to mine and your thoughts to my thoughts, you’ve been learning how to love me, haven’t you? ❜

❛ if i am a lover of impossible problems then you will have loved me for my impossibilities. ❜

❛ what else matters but this, me, us? ❜

❛ am i imagining this? ❜

❛ i want to see your art. ❜

❛ this night is stolen, i want grand larceny and this is petty theft. ❜

❛ austere. it’s a cold word. ❜

❛ you have never understood beauty and all the worse for you, you never will. ❜

❛ i am more addicted to the thought of your name on my tongue than i am to any other form of vice. ❜

❛ the thought of having you is more dangerous than any cocktail of drugs, the idea of belonging to you endlessly destructive. ❜

❛ it’s a fire. i used to burn out, now i just burn.❜

❛ his name is written on my skin, he scarred me. ❜

❛ you just seem like you’re looking for something to overwhelm you.❜

❛ you can’t fix me. ❜

❛ i don’t see anything to fix. ❜

❛ thank you for the shape you took in my life but it’s over now, it doesn’t fit. ❜

PART FOUR, FIRSTS

❛ something is wrong with us, we are unwell, no one has ever felt any of this without destruction. ❜

❛ empires have fallen like this. ❜

❛ my god, what a waste of time doing anything else but holding you. ❜

❛ jesusfuckingchrist what have you done to me? ❜

❛ go on, ruin me. wreck me, please. ❜

❛ am i the girl who stays while others leave? ❜

❛ i love your brain.❜

❛ can you love my brain even when it is small? when it is malevolent? when it’s violent? can you love it when it doesn’t love me? ❜

❛ i’m going to tell you my secrets. ❜

❛ come home with me. ❜

❛ i want your future, i want it for me. ❜

❛ i’m going to replace those memories, i’m taking them back for me. ❜

❛ i want you to say everything, anything. i want to have your thoughts, i want to bottle them, i want to put them in my drawer for safekeeping. ❜

❛ jesus, we’re fucked, aren’t we? ❜

PART FIVE, VARIABLES

❛ come outside, come look at the stars. ❜

❛ i worry that if you try to keep up with her, you’ll burn out. ❜

❛ you’re wrong about her. ❜

❛ ether is what they called the air in the realm of the gods. a shining, fluid substance. ❜

❛ you poor thing, what a curse. i wonder which god you angered.❜

❛ you can’t just live in your past lives. ❜

❛ so this is what it is to love something you cannot control, it feels precisely like terror. ❜

❛ i thought you’d be sick of me by now. ❜

❛ every time you love, pieces of you break off and get replaced by something you steal from someone else. ❜

❛ yes, it is perilously wonderful to suffer so sweetly with you. ❜

❛ can’t you see how intangibly i exist, and how perilously? ❜

❛ will I always fear him as much as I love him? ❜

PART SIX, TURNS

❛ you really haven’t changed, have you? ❜

❛ you can always undream me, unbelieve me. ❜

❛ i’m strange, okay we’re both strange, nobody understands us except for us. ❜

❛ you think i don’t know that there’s something wrong with me? ❜

❛ i think you need me more than you want me. ❜

❛ there’s a difference between cravings and compulsions. ❜

❛ i love your brain even when i fear it. ❜

❛ have i already destroyed this little fledgling thing i tried to nurture? ❜

❛ whatever you are made of, i am made of it, too. ❜

❛ it isn’t pretty, it’s lonely, it’s desolate, it’s a chilling portrait of vastness. ❜

❛ she does burn me, she ignites me. ❜

❛ she is my hope and for that she is dangerous, unequivocally, but she is also alive, unreservedly. ❜

❛ it’s you and me right now, stranger ❜

❛ it’s you and me alone in the ether, and you don’t even know it yet. ❜

❛ this is what it looks like to love you; it looks like an abyss. ❜

❛ all falls come with danger, but not us. not us, we float. ❜