every heartbeat was a scream || justice + isobel; 73rd vt

She had watched Justice Fray carefully, from the moment he stepped onto the stage to the second the doors to the Justice Building shut behind him.

Isobel Krigel was not sure what she felt. She didn't know her late cousin, Scout Krigel, who Justice himself had killed.

("There's th-this prince too. Nice hair. He's okay, I guess . . . or . . . or he's gonna be."

"And the fair maiden? Is she gonna be okay?"

But there was no answer, only the sound of the cannon echoing the faltering of her heartbeat.)

It was not that she was empty. She did feel something, a spark in the darkness for her late cousin, but in truth, she did not know Scout Krigel. Justice knew her better than Isobel did. She only saw her on a silver screen, watched her spill fairytales from her lips as Justice Fray cut his blade into her veins and let her bleed, let her blood wash over the ground in a sea.

These things do not shock Isobel Krigel; she has seen it over and over again, a new face, a new name, but the same story. Cut down by another tribute and made to bleed for entertainment. It happened every year, and Isobel would watch every year. Their blood numbed her to violence.

So when Victor steps into the Justice Building where Isobel stands, leaned up against the wall, she does not turn red with rage or tremble in fear. Over anything, she is curious; she learned about Victors in school, saw them on television, and heard them spoken about in every other conversation at the Academy. But she had never spoken to one, despite her own brother being a Victor. But she wouldn't exactly consider she and Leon to be family, no matter what her blood says; neither was Scout. Arissa was blood, and she was family too, because they carried each other's burdens on their backs.

Leon may not be her brother to her, but to everyone else, he was. Isobel did not stand with the rest of the Krigels or listen to Justice's victory tour speech — she would have felt out of place there, and she wasn't interested in hearing Justice's apologies. They would not apply to her, and she knew he wasn't sorry — she didn't think Victors were ever sorry that they lived instead of the other twenty-three. And that wasn't a bad thing.

She could recognize, unlike many others, that the families weren't the only ones broken. So no, she did not want to watch Justice struggle over empty apologies for his survival — Isobel had a better idea. So instead, she went to the Justice Building, her gift concealed in a little blue box in the pocket of her little violet skirt. The Peacekeepers tried to turn her away at first, but then she told them her name, and they let her pass.

The Justice Building is nothing like what she thought it would look like on the inside. Its main room is plain, with wooden floors, stone walls and dim lighting. Justice Fray is right by the two great doors, having just retreated from the stage. He looks different in real life than he does on television, Isobel notes, or maybe it's the way the light hits him. She tilts her head to the side almost inquisitively, and finally understands what the girls were swooning over and why he was constantly called a 'fuckboy.' The thought makes her smile, just a little curve of her lips, to herself.

And then her smile fades as she looks down and sees her cousin's blood glistening on his hands, but she does not recoil.

"Hi, I'm Isobel," she says, stepping more into the light so the shadows of the walls withdraw from her face. "Krigel," she then adds to clarify; Justice wouldn't know her, but he would know the name of one of his own kills.