we can't, we won't, we {w i l l} | | (zoe)

"If the Capitol doesn't kill her first, I fucking will!"

And with a howl, Pyrite Shore slammed the front door of the Shore mansion and stormed into the night.

She was going to strangle her sister. Or wipe that pretty little smirk off that pretty little face. Or stab a fork through that little winking eye that made the Capitol hoot with laughter and her face scowl. The little shit, humiliating her like that. It hadn't helped that she'd heard sniggers from the others, their mocking voices repeating Opal's words over and over again. "There goes the little angel herself!" "Pyrite, darling, why so upset?" "Oh don't be so scared, haven't you heard that she's the sweetest, most innocent thing ever?" The Capitol surely had, Caesar Flickerman had - hell, the entire nation was now convinced that she was anything but what she'd built herself up to be for years now.

If Opal steps back onto the District One platform I'll rip her fucking throat out.

She didn't even care that she'd left a path of destruction throughout the house, or that her bedroom looked as if a tornado had struck it with an almighty blow. Nothing mattered, through. It was all a blur of swear words and angry voices and clattering furniture, all she could focus on was the pure rage pumping through her head and planning a thousand ways to hurt her newly-reaped sister. Footsteps pounded against the pavement underneath her, hair flying and unkempt as an accurate representation of her current emotional state. The worst part was her parents had laughed it off, too caught up in Emerald 2.0 to care about her. It should be her upon that interview stage, playing the strategy card and soaking in the admiration that only Careers could truly feel from a Capitol audience. After all, she had worked for years and years with training, training and more damn training. What had useless little Opal done? Sat in her garden and grown fucking plants.

As soon as I get home I'm digging up that bloody garden, she thought through a fierce glare. Stomping over her sister's pride and joy with her own two feet surely seemed like a good form of therapy. That's what Opal had done, right? Trodden all over everything that she cared about, everything she'd poured her heart and soul into. There was something soothing about thinking of paying her sister back through taking her anger out on weeds, as odd as it sounded, and it took away some of the stress that pressed down on her in the cold air she breathed in, forcing itself into her lungs with a sharp reminder of the evening temperature. It made her smile slightly, which eventually twisted itself into a cool laugh. Since when had Opal ever been a threat to Pyrite? Emerald was the one that overshadowed her, kept her in the dark - and look at how that turned out. Play it cool, Py she reminded herself, running on adrenaline and fury. At least the District still knows who you are. The thought even made her smirk, reminding herself of how Opal looked that morning of the reaping when she'd come to say 'goodbye.' if she were Opal, she wouldn't even think about stepping off of that damn train if she wanted to keep her limbs.

Her smile lasted about 2 seconds, before a cocky, familiar voice caught her line of hearing and made her freeze.

"Well don't you look as cheery as always" Kellan greeted her, sarcasm dripping from his words. Turning on her heel, eyes rolling for a moment as she crossed her arms, Pyrite retaliated with a curl of her lip. "Fuck off, Fray - I'm really not in the mood to deal with lurkers like yourself right now."

And then he bowed in front of her, and she'd be lying to say that it didn't catch her off guard, even just a little bit. "Sorry, Ms. Shore, maybe a drink will make up for it? First one's on me." Smiling, Pyrite saw the trap enfolding in his mind - but damn, she was pissed off, and there really couldn't be any other means to which she could embarrass herself any more this evening. "Come on, you know you want to."

"Fuck it," the teen groaned - sure, she'd heard the stories, some even falling from the lips of her own siblings, but who hadn't? She wouldn't let it get that far. Because, unlike her twin, Pyrite Shore had standards. Standards far, far higher than the lowly means of Kellan Fray the District Manwhore.

Finding herself sliding into a seat and glaring down at a bar table next to Kellan minutes later, a mixture of regret and rage from Opal's interview flowed through her at his conversation starter. "So, how's life treating you these days?"

She scoffed and sat back, folding her arms once more. Always so defensive, Pyrite. "Well, where do I begin? I've just been embarrassed in front of the entire nation by my pathetic weed-lover of a sister, mocked by my entire family, and now I'm sitting next to you making polite conversation. Don't think it can get much worse than this, do you?"

Leaning forward, the smell of cigarettes and cologne fell through her senses, and for a moment she swore it wasn't from the aroma of the bar. "Now, how's about that drink, Fray?"

By definition, letting off steam was to release one's pent-up emotions, such as anger, verbally. More often than not Pyrite was too furious to use words, taking to throwing things around and kicking anything that came in her way. Once she even shoved Aventurine down the stairs, the memory playing at the corners of her mouth as she attempted to hold a smirk in. But the sister whom she really wouldn't mind pushing off a few flights of their grand home was thousands of miles away, preparing to fight for her life - a role that caused jealousy to squirm through her body as it fueled the already raging fire within her.

Kellan waved over two drinks with a subconscious flick of his wrist, as if he'd done it a thousand times. Had probably half of her sisters (and the rest of the District's female population) sitting right where she sat, though they'd all swoon helplessly at his smile and get themselves slathered off of their faces in an attempt to wake up the next morning right beside him, feeling like they'd accomplished something. That's where you an I are different, Fray, she mused quietly. You think you have the upper hand.

She smirked at his routine charm, worn around the edges from overuse. Pathetic. For a moment, she thought about what someone would think if they walked in to find her sitting across from the Fray kid, especially someone she knew. And whilst the teenager didn't really give a damn about what people thought of her, she knew that she would probably become the victim of taunts and laughter for the second time that evening. Coming up with an excuse as to why she sat across from the boy, slowly pushing a shot glass in her direction. Because I'm bored? Because I'd rather drown myself in alcohol than embarrassment right now? Weak reasons - and for once, she herself didn't even have a valid answer.

"To us?" Kellan asked, and the moment the glass brushed against her hand Pyrite knew the competition had begun. 'One drink' meant several, it was almost common practice. After all, everything in District One was a contest - to be the richest, the most powerful, the best career. Hell, there was even an underlying contest of how big your families could get before your houses (another set of contests - biggest mansion, most expensive property, fanciest furnishing) began to feel a little crowded. It was fed to you on a spoon with your baby food, drilled into generation after generation, became a part of your subconscious. Winning was everything here.

So she smiled and tipped the scorching liquid down her throat to jump-start her victory.

"Look at it this way," Kellan began. "Either she will die in the arena, which I am guessing will happen, or you can make her wish she had when she comes back." He had a point, and his words laid down her plans she'd been rolling out all evening for everyone at their bench to see. If he weren't so arrogant, I'd think him kind of smart. You can talk all you want in District One, but the only way you really accomplish something is by doing it, proving yourself worthy of your words. "I'll even help."

Her throat still sizzled as she replied with a smirk and a doubtful raise of her eyebrows. "Right, you'd help me terrorize my sister if she does - and she won't - come home." Victors were untouchable by anyone except the Capitol, everyone knew that. Perhaps she had been the one talking the talk, screeching threats down the hallways of her home that she'd probably never be able to pull off. It's all in the name, isn't it? Pyrite. Fool's gold. But damn, if she could pull off fooling Fray that he's winning his tired game of slow seduction, at least she'd rule tonight.

"But you can help by getting me another drink" she replied with a sigh and a brush of her hair with her hands, pushing the empty glass back into his hands for Round Two. If soaking her sorrows in alcohol would help her win, she'd let regret sink in in the morning.

"Bring it on, Fray."

She is the calm before the storm.

Calmness, to Pyrite, was in a good book. In the warmth of coffee, in snow, in laying completely still underneath covers in the middle of the night and doing nothing except breathe. It was a rarity she basked in with only a slight glimmer of paranoia stretching into her consciousness, always aware that being calm was something too good to hang around in her life for long. She'd be back to constant training and arguing and fighting through her life day after tiring day in the blink of an eye.

So seize it. And with both hands she refrained herself from exploding at the obnoxious kid in front of her and scrawling his name into her book of 'People I Need to Punch in the Face' nestled in and amongst her angry head. His ego reeked with every sly smirk, every raise of his eyebrows, every damn gesture his body made caused the scowl across her face to deepen. But despite all of this, she stays surprisingly calm. There's a storm coming, brewing itself inside of her chest. It's pissed off and competitive as hell and whatever else it may bring, the aftermath can wait 'till the morning.

"Alright, if you think you can handle it" Kellan remarks, buying the rest of the bottle with a wave of his hand. She bites her tongue to not lash out, to not scoff and say I can handle anything. Maybe that was just the alcohol that still tingled at the back of her throat talking. Maybe her constant thirst to prove herself was being drowned, shot after shot, until she didn't care who saw her weaknesses. For once in her seventeen years, it'd be an interesting change.

So she says it anyway.

"I, Fray," (she tosses another one down, the burning sensation causing her words to catch fire and spread throughout her mind) "can handle whatever you throw at me."

That'll get him going. Subtlety seeming to have completely vanished, she smiled. She'd seen a lot of egotistical douche-bags in her lifetime and Kellan Fray was no different. They needed to be egged on, to think that they were the greatest thing since Ripred himself to grace the ground of District One. Usually she didn't bother with them, but tonight her gears were wound too tightly to pass up the opportunity of playing the game of back-and-forth. Pouring another drink, she held it up and made a toast of her own.

"To getting absolutely trashed, and not giving a fuck."Your turn, Fray she said with her eyes, glancing down at the empty shot glass and pushing the bottle towards him.

"I'm aware that you have a thing for taking my sisters out on cute little dates like this," Pyrite began, feeling the heat of the night against her skin as she laid down the law. "But if you breathe a word of this outing to anybody, I'll make sure you won't be able to drink again without writhing in agony." Straightforward, with no bullshit, just the way she liked it. If morals were going to come down tonight, it'd take more than three drinks for the Career to stoop down to her sister's levels.

"Your move, Fray."

The storm carries her thoughts around in a blur, whirling around in their own dangerous, delightful dance. Anger and fear collide together as a fatal spark, alcohol the gasoline to fuel hands that crush her precautions into dust and stamps out her guard to nothing but cinders and ash. Tonight is a risk, a gamble - she's used to sticking to the system, never stepping a toe out of line and hammering the same routine into others time and time again until they're perfected. She is not one for adventure, for diving into the unknown. Does letting her guard down for once in her life make her a hypocrite - or human?

She has had 17 years to prove she isn't human. 17 years of posing a statue, dead behind viscous eyes, a creature all the little children would cower at on their television screens. Ones she would wail at as a tiny little being, ones she would colour in with crayons on her bedroom floor, ones she would learn to spell the names of as she started school, ones she would laugh at and fling her weapons around when she was convinced she could slay them all with ease. Becoming exactly what she wasn't - inhuman - was much, much harder. Underneath her cold skin, deep beneath the tough exterior and alcohol-infused veins that played puppeteer with her body, lay traces of someone that could have been (or should have been) human. But becoming that person isn't an option - but it never was, not since she was brought home to the Shore household as a bundle of three. Every foot that stepped into that household to call it home would not walk out kind, or loving, or gentle. You would only walk out a villain, stripped of all potential to be a good human being.

But she doesn't care, because she doesn't know any better. Her own two feet stumble across the floor and curse underneath liquor laced mutters. And then she laughs a little, blindly following out her companion (if that was any title Kellan Fray deserved sober she'd slap him senseless, but regrets were for the morning and this felt a lot better than the fury that surrounded her as she stormed out of the ice-cold palace she called home.) Cracks settle against her skin as she walks, each step closer sending them sprawling across her exterior. An earthquake caused by her own body to distract the sense and reason that usually lingers in the front of her mind, forcing open the space between her ears to smile.

In this moment she is a foolish little girl, stumbling after the monsters that lure her in with false promises. Although this time she knows how the story will entail and how it will end. A story that a few hours ago she would detest, laugh at, choke on her food at the very thought of. She vowed never to stoop as low as her sisters - but look at what good that did. (She also vowed, long ago, to never trip up on her own feet, to never fall victim to anyone or anything, to never become a casualty to foolishness. To hate who she loved, and whom she hated - well, that was another story.)

The night outside would chill her skin to the very bone were she not already so drained of warmth. Yet the way the air around her lashes at her bare skin stirs the person inside of her that could have been. A person who takes risks, a person who is not afraid to open up, not afraid to care. Not afraid to say yes.

She can't - she won't. She would never dare.

But she's freezing and his mouth looks warmer than her home (and her heart) will ever be. Breath mingles in the darkness and she's damn thankful the night conceals them both, too close for comfort and dancing on the brink of a gamble she'll soon regret.

And with lips tainted with a venomous lifetime of hateful words, she poses her ultimatum.

"Convince me."