.:welcome to the {tomb}:. Shrimp?/Geebs

Clayburn, Cassius

She was such a special specimen. A fresh kind of beauty no amount of dirt could cover up. He noticed it first at the detention center and ever since then Cassius' mind was filled to the brim with her dazzling green eyes. It was so kind of her to slip into his District that one fateful night and pay him a visit. She couldn't stay away now. There was too much there between them. Too much left unsaid and undone.

No one can hide from Cassius Clayburn. Even without taking into account his power, his looks alone suggest constant surveillance. From his hawkish nose, to his burning eyes- Clayburn saw everything and everyone. Only he didn't have to be attentive to see the girl now. She had slipped in through his bedroom window- just as he thought she would. Sitting in his chair, legs crossed and hands folded in his lap he could hear her knife jiggling the window frame open. She was resourceful, and sneaky enough for a common criminal. With proper instruction...

No, there was already a plan set into motion. One that evolved taking, not teaching. Lane, his silent partner, was in need of a tongue and this girl was the perfect donor. Yes, Ariadne was perfect. A little free spirited, but time would take care of that.

When the girl emerged into the light, her eyes didn't even register the man in the corner but fell onto the file displayed out on the coffee table. Just as I thought she would. Cassius didn't know whether to be happy his plan was working or bored that there was hardly any challenge anymore. The girl's porcelain face twisted into an expression of horror, her forest green eyes growing wider as they stared at their match in the photograph. As much as she'd like to think otherwise, this girl can still feel fear.

“I’ve been expecting you, Ariadne.,” if anyone else had been in the room they would have thought Clayburn was asking the girl to tea. Only Ariadne was not so ignorant, something that made her even more desirable. Those emerald orbs turned on him and he watched as all the color vanished from her cheeks. Slender fingers let the little knife fall, clanking against the wooden floors.

“Cassius Clayburn.” a shiver crept across his skin as his name slipped from in between her lips. He didn't even have to force her to say it- what a victory! Fire filled his chest as he rose from the chair.

"Well, Ariadne, you've made this easy," he said, his tongue lingering on the girl's name before finishing the sentence. Slowly, he walked across the room towards her. With the knife out of the way there was nothing to hinder his progress. His steps were slow but calculated, like a lion stalks through a the tall grass before leaping onto the surprised gazelle. "But, there is something I need to check first."

Suddenly, his fingertips were against her waist and she was there. Her proximity was like a drug, the earthy scent of her hair filling his nostrils and clouding his brain. Then it wasn't just his fingers lingering against her sides but his whole hands, tugging her to him. This girl was perfection in human form. Perfect size, perfect look, with just the right amount of forbiddenness. The perfect specimen for this procedure. She even know how the surgery was done, having administered the treatment herself once before. Only, Cassius wanted to check the product before he bought it- just to make sure.

There was no stopping his lips meeting hers. His embrace was crushing and hungry and anyone can tell you how vicious and desperate a starving man can be. He had wound one arm around the girl's shoulders while the other hand held her face to his own. Pulling back, the man was out of breath, his voice gruff has he took the girl's chin in his fingers and tilted her face up to look into it.

"You are exquisite."

One day, in the prime of her depression, Ariadne wondered what it would feel like to tie a plastic bag around her head. The suffocation would be unavoidable. Each breath she took would further lead to her demise until she was struggling for air, trying desperately to pull the plastic away from her face as the life left her lungs and tightened and constricted her. She imagined that, with no oxygen in her lungs, she'd deflate and fall to her knees, hands falling from her face and to the ground where she'd die, fingers curling into the soil she belonged to. It was a terrible image and when such an idea crossed her mind, Ariadne would quickly hum to herself as if to push it far from her mind. She deserved something vile, yes, for her evil actions, but nothing as bad as that.

However, what Ariadne didn't realize immediately realize until that moment in his arms, was that she'd already tied that bag around her head upon entering Cassius Clayburn's house. With each step she took towards him, her limited supply of oxygen dwindled until she was suffocating in his strong arms, dying as he pressed his burning lips to hers. She sputtered and gagged, but he was relentless. Oh, Ariadne, how you knew he would be. Oh, Ariadne, you foolish, foolish little girl.

Ariadne lay next to him in the cool, summer grass, drinking in the azure blue sky, growing comfortable in those puffy white clouds.
We're to find my parents, she promised him. Look, look, someone's initials here, here on my blanket. There in the grass, Ariadne looked only to herself, to the clouds that spelled out her imagined future, to the bees that hummed her name, the wind that kissed her skin like parents surely would. There in the grass when she was so young, just a year ago by now, was it? Ariadne should've done all the things she yearned to do now. She should've looked at him and admired him, the there and then, the present, not the future she envisioned for herself. She should've brushed her fingers over those soft lips, those lips that could then speak. She should've touched his eyelids, those bright eyes, deadened by a loss of communication, sold into a lifetime of slavery. If not to the Capitol, then to his own mind, unable to ever express what was in there. An actor. He wanted to be an actor. She should've listened to the sweet melody of his voice rather than her own selfish, silly one. She should've held him and begged the Peacekeepers to take her, only her. She should've begged Cassius to do what he'd like with her and not him, not him. She should've turned the scalpel on herself, rather than slice him apart with it. She should've, she should've.

Ariadne lived in a prison. On the walls, over and over, it read in his blood, I didn't, I didn't. She lived in a world of "didn't"s. She should've, she should've, she whispered to herself every day, told herself, wished herself, but she didn't, she hadn't and she never would. Ariadne, clasped in the arms of a terror, knew she should fight back. She should, she should, push him away, retrieve her knife and go about her business. She knew, she knew that, if not, she would befall some terrible fate. As her lips and mouth burned with his terrible, awful, pressing, dirty one, she wondered if she deserved it. Deflate, should she deflate and let him reap his reward, eke out her punishment? Or should she?

"I'm going to kill him."

The words struck her suddenly and standing there in his arms, Ariadne felt a twinge, a sudden sharp one, like lightning, strike her body. Those were her words, scrawled in her own blood, over the should'ves and didn'ts. It wasn't a past wish, but a future goal. A decision that inflamed her. A decision that had lead her up the fire escape, knife in hand, down the hallway, to this very spot. Was she to crumble now? Fall to mere embraces and kisses? Was she that weak?

Her entire body shook like a leaf, but it wasn't in fear, but rather in the quivering ferocity that accompanied revenge. She pressed her fingers to Greg's cracked lips and his dead eyes and whispered it. I will avenge you. I'm going to kill him. Greg, give me strength. I will kill him.

“You are exquisite.”

That will is what drove Ariadne to shove him away with all of her might, eyes wide, sweat sliding down her forehead already and hastily, she pressed her foot down on the handle of the knife on the floor, sliding it towards her tightly. She didn't dare bend yet to pick it up, but rather pressed it into the carpet with her boot. She could feel his blood pumping through her. It had always been strong, he'd always been strong. He'd recited a monologue for her once in a strong voice, the voice of an actor and that strength, unyielding, was the strength she mimicked when she spoke to her tormentor. "Sit down! Sit down now or I'll stab you," she took a deep breath. Deep breath to project. Isn't that what he'd said? "Sit down."

Ariadne wasn’t Ariadne. She wasn’t Greg. She was the line between the two, the embodiment of both of them. She stood, trembling, using his sweeping words, but her strong voice. They were one. For once, though apart, Ariadne felt them, their spirits, their beings, working together and Ariadne, carrying the burden of Greg in a new light, a new voice, gave her command once more, ”Sit down!”

Clayburn, Cassius

There it was. Cassius had hit Ariadne's breaking point and how sweet of a payoff it was. The girl who had such a spirit, the fighter whose words had a special bite to them. The girl who managed to get away from him in the dark alley months earlier. The girl who was quick to threaten Cassius Clayburn was now begging for her life. A smile crept across his lips as he watched her struggle. Tears made the green of her eyes even more brilliant as she screamed for mercy.

He might have given it to her. The thought of sparing the girl did cross his mind but not out of the goodness of his own heart. Rather, it was more his greed than anything. He wanted to keep her for himself, tongue and all. A little china doll to be kept on a shelf until she was wanted. However he knew keeping a young girl in his apartment would arose suspicion and she'd eventually get her fighting spirit back and make a run for it. Yes, it was better to silence her now than later. Once she was mute, then Cassius would reevaluate his options once more.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, my dove," he grabbed her chin, yanking it down to open the girl's mouth. "This game we're playing..."

Moving his hand from her chin to her mouth, he wedged his fingers around her lips to keep Ariadne from closing them. Holding the scalpel up so she was sure to see it in all its glory one more time before it was coated in blood, Cassius wiped it on the white sleeve of his jacket. He slide the flat of the blade across her bottom lip, before shoving it further into her mouth, making the first incision into the muscle.

"I rigged it"

Ariadne

Ariadne was sure she was dead.

The implications of Greg, storming in the room, making some kind of guttural sound, uttered from a tongue-less mouth, eyes flashing could only mean that. She was dead and this was a mockery of her, her fantasy, what could've been because it was too late. She was dead. The weight was rising off of her. She was a dead body on the couch--yet, why wasn't she leaving her body?

Pulling herself up on trembling arms, she blinked. Cassius stood in front of her, facing towards the Avox boy who stood low, ready to pounce. His arms were thrown out before him and for a bizarre moment, Ariadne was sure he was about to give Greg a hug. And then, she heard his voice, hoarse and sharp, sending her skin into icy water.

“Get away. She’s mine.”

Ariadne suddenly felt more helpless than she did before with Cassius pining her down, prepared to cut her tongue out of her mouth. She reached up and touched her mouth and even whimpered a little. She nibbled on her tongue, to ensure that it was there. She touched her chest and found no gaping wound. She was alive, yet barely so. Crumpled on the couch as the two men prepared to fight over her, one for malice, another for…for what?

“She’s mine.”

The two words echoed in Ariadne’s head. Ownership. Her wrists didn’t twist as the invisible bonds wound round and round them. There was an invisible band over her mouth, silencing her. Her ankles were weighted. No chance of running. Ariadne deserved nothing less.

Cassius’s apartment was meticulous, carefully kept. She could hear the skeletons scratching away in the closets and wondered vaguely how many women he had owned before. She would just be another. A tick off his list. The folder with her picture had slid to the floor and she cocked her head sideways to figure the girl in the picture into her memory. That girl was fuller, with more (crooked teeth) and brighter eyes. That girl didn’t have the blood of her best friend on her hands. That girl had a few days, sitting in a dark room, a camera going off in front of her, before she was dragged back to her cell, before she’d find herself in the interrogation room. That girl had time.

Ariadne had none.

If Ariadne accepted Cassius’s words for truth and stayed still on that couch, waiting until the fight ceased and Greg was gone, she’d get what she wanted and the sands in her hourglass would run out. She’d forget a time where she had dreams, hopes, forget the guilt and the depression, days spent wallowing in the grass, plotting only like an ambitious girl could, making up dreams, making a list, creating debts that she knew she could never pay off. She would die and she would become part of the grass, with her hair laced in the stars, her eyes on the back wings of a butterfly. Ariadne would cease to exist and who would remember her? Cassius maybe with a lock of her hair in his closet. Maybe he’d take it out occasionally and press her smell to his nose until it faded entirely and Ariadne was officially gone forever.

“She’s mine.”

Ariadne knew with those words her fate was laid out before her entirely and all she needed to do now was sink into the couch and accept it. Throw her arms apart and take it with dignity.

“She’s mine.”

Her neck shivered, ready to give out, but she managed to pull her head up from the cushions for a second. Greg held a shard of glass in his hands. Silly boy, Ariadne knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. And in Cassius’s hands…a scalpel.

Ariadne’s cold skin suddenly warmed and she threw her head back again, staring at a white ceiling that was actually flooded with light, with an interrogation room where sweat dripped down her sides and she believed that very instrument had bested Greg. But he’d gotten the chance to leave. Ariadne had always believed it was her. Thrown out as she screamed for her best friend, left to her own devices in a very, very dark world with Greg beside her, she believed she’d escaped but there she stood, still holding that scalpel, still trying to change what was already done, still trying to slit her own throat, still believing that was the only solution.

Ariadne had never left that interrogation room. Where she had crawled, Greg had run. And here he stood, not the stupid boy she thought he was, but the one who managed to take his destiny into his own hands.

A foul smell was filling Ariadne’s nostrils, filtering most horribly from Cassius’s couch. His stench was overpowering. Ariadne with her head against the cushions, her body curved against the couch, knew it would become part of her the longer she stayed here. If she was his, she’d become his, become his stench. Remain in that humid interrogation room, surrounded by him, the mirror betraying miles of his sneering lips, his rough hands, that scalpel, in his hands, in hers, fused together forever.

Two years. Ariadne had been there for two years and now, she pushed down hard on the white walls, dragged the lights down, pushed down on the squishy cushions and pushed herself up to stand on trembling legs.

“She’s mine—”

“I am not!” Ariadne translated Greg’s roar into words. She stamped her foot, cracking that mirror that doubled as a window. “Greg!”To speak his name was a relief, sugar to replace the bitterness in her mouth. “Greg!” She wanted to scream it forever, so high, so loudly as glass shards fell around her and a chained chair splintered. She moved to push past Cassius. “Let’s go! We’ll get out of here. Together!”

Ariadne didn’t know exactly where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do, but she did know this: she’d been chained and starved for two years, trapped in that unrelenting room, but today that wouldn’t be the case; today she was going to break out.

ooc: sorry this took like a year and it isn't that good of a post I need to get back in the swing of Ariadne idk she's tricky but I love you guys for your patience and I owe you both ice cream. <33