*/Fear Is How I {Fall}\* [Elysium]

Corinne had never been one for tantrums.

Throwing a fit was a surefire way to ensure that you didn't get what you wanted, unless your name happened to be Neva, in which case your every whim would be presented to you on a silver platter at the first hint of a pout. But despite this knowledge, she found herself wanting to pummel the living daylights out of something - a training dummy, a wall, the first person who made the mistake of looking at her the wrong way - fuming quietly as the soles of her shoes scuffed along the pavement.

Unbelievable. Absolutely, completely unbelievable. So this is my only option.

She was fed up, an exceedingly rare occurrence. For all of her flaws, stoic neutrality and cold calculation and wry half-grins that never quite reached her eyes, no one could make the claim the Corinne Brightman lacked tenacity. Give and up were two words that simply didn't mesh together in her vocabulary, failure such an outlandish concept that perfection was her only option. People blamed it on everything from genetics to childhood trauma to just being an odd bird, but there was something driving the girl that didn't give impetus to others, a raw force of determination that even the most disciplined Career couldn't hope to echo. It was this same force that drove her from the Victor's Village that morning, unable to bear the signs of Neva's success grating infuriatingly against her own inadequacies until she had thrown her backpack over her shoulders and fled, leaving the front door swinging ajar behind her.

Nothing was ever good enough. It was one of those things that had been drilled into her head since she could remember. You have a name to live up to. Why must you be a disappointment? Why can't you just be like your sister? Corinne cringed at the very idea. Victor or not, successful or not, she would never turn into Neva, into a spoiled, petulant Capitol lapdog who lorded her trophies and wealth over the unwashed masses as she stood in her ivory tower and preened, all the while looking disdainfully down her nose at anyone and everyone, including her own sister, who was too flawed for the picture-perfect Brightman family in the first place.

They don't understand. A disease isn't who I am. Epilepsy doesn't define me.

Oh, but it did. It defined her in every aspect of her life, from the lack of affection in her mother's touch to the cold judgement in her father's eyes, from the razor-sharp curve of Neva's smirks to the cherished bottle of little white pills that sat in a locked drawer in her father's office, unadulterated perfection the only key. She supposed it wasn't fair - parents condemning their daughter to seizures and pain unless she earned her medication through perfect grades and a spotless reputation, through social refinement and deadly skill with any weapon ever seen in an Arena - but then again, a debilitating condition marking her as the black sheep in a pristine family made a lot of things unfair.

She had found the tesserae receipts accidentally. At first Corinne hadn't been able to make sense of it, the stack of papers sitting on her father's desk, each piece bearing her name and the formal statement that enlisting oneself for tesserae implied the knowledge that the person listed above would be entered into the reaping pool in proportion to the amount of tesserae they were signed up for. For a moment she had simply stood there, blackish-brown eyes narrowed in confusion as she read and reread the words. And then the lightbulb went off.

They want me gone. They want me dead.

Corinne didn't trust Gossamer Harlow as far as she could throw him (which was probably a considerable distance, actually, given his whippet-thin build and her own wiry strength), but as the closest thing she had to a friend, he'd been the first to find out about the dreadful secret that the brunette Career had found hidden in the depths of her own home. And what had he done? Nothing. Well, she counted scrawling an address on a scrap of paper and giving a nonchalant you obviously can't trust Neva to train you anymore, no guarantees you'll get in, but they say this guy's the best as nothing, even though it was technically something, however useless.

A dark eyebrow arched skeptically as she looked from the paper to the door in front of her and back to the paper again, trying to decide whether all of this malarkey was actually going anywhere or if it was just more trademark Goss Well-Intentioned Stupidity making a bumbling attempt to sweep her off her feet. She'd told him a million times that she'd claw her own eyes out before agreeing to a date, but he'd never know the odd feeling she got behind her sternum every time he asked again and again despite her constant rebuffs, simply refusing to be deterred with those big blue eyes and goofy grin that did funny things to what was left of her heart. Drawing her lower lip between her teeth, Corinne finally rolled her eyes in halfhearted acceptance before sucking in a deep breath and rapping sharply on the door three times.

She was surprised by how quickly it opened, the small crack of space and metallic clicking sound indicating that there was a chain on the door. Aware that she was on display now, Corinne made a conscious effort to smooth her expression out into its default stoic countenance, the low alto murmur of her voice falling flatly into the air as dark, bottomless eyes tried to search the equally inky abyss visible in the small fissure of space between the barely-opened door and the frame."Yeah, hi. I'm Corinne Brightman. I'm looking for a new trainer since my sister's a backstabbing harpy who can't be trusted, and a friend of mine gave me this address. Don't suppose you'd be interested?"