eye of the noose | [clue killer / naomi / cleo ]

Her dreams were warm. A blur of rosy lips and pale skin, of laughter smothered in her palm and stowed away for a rainy day. Fingers gentle as they trap a formless face, biting the tip of her tongue as she draws gentle circles on their skin with a makeup brush. She remembers what it's like to smile, the kind that creeps upon your lips when you're least expecting it. Sloppier than those she learned to force, ones you can't bite back no matter how hard you try.

It had been a very long time since Naomi Valero could recall her sleep being filled with anything but paralyzing fear.

But today, her dreams were warm.

Wake up. Sharp an tinny, a screech that suffocates. Wake up! She's fighting through ice, so fucking numb that she can't feel her fingertips. She's out of control and it terrifies her, letting her bindings dig into her wrists just to prove her hands are still there. WAKE UP. Her eyes snap open, grounded by pain and halfway to a panic attack.

There's warmth dripping off her fingertips and something chafing against her throat. Settled upon a perch that teeters uncertainly beneath her and for one terrifying second, she thinks she recognizes the person across from her.

Blinded to all but her own panic, Naomi strains against her bonds realizing quickly just how close she's coming to death and past the point of asking why. If that's Clara, if they have Clara too -

the person bound across from her lets out an exaggerated sigh and Naomi instantly recognizes her companion. "Cleo?" And oh, she sounds pathetic. Voice high pitched, trembling as she chokes on the words. Even now she's nothing, hyperventilating as Cleo trades banter with their attacker.

And then the... thing draws close to her. "D-don't!" She chokes out, recoiling from them like she'd been struck. "Please." She squeezes her eyes shut, tasting tears and trying not to gag. She almost asks why, an instinctual question clinging to the tip of her tongue and kept in place by her last shred of pride.

This is senseless. Something twisted lingers beneath that mask, contorted by it's toxic thoughts. Reveling in fear, in cruelty. Quite literally playing with it's food. It doesn't matter what it thinks of her, or if Cleo is cruel and she is a coward. She won't give it a chance to try and justify this fucking game, not even to sate her own curiosity. If Naomi dies here, she doesn't want to know why.

When Cleo speaks to her, it's almost calming. She tears her gaze away from the gallows, toward the girl that looks so much like her dear friend. They're little more than acquaintances, but at least she's not a psychopath in a bird costume. "I don't know." She's still struggling to speak, sucking in breaths like she's trying to memorize the sensation.

"But maybe we can-" The words are torn in two by a sob, dragged involuntarily from her throat, "maybe we can talk. There must be something we can offer it, right? What does it want?"

And after all this time, she still just wants to run away.

w6PYmnnAfA1-10

(tie breaker bc apparently naomi and cleo guessed the same fuckin letter, like bottoms)

1-10

1-10

Panic manifests, and I can taste desperation in the air. It filters through my mask, potent and delicious. I offer her my full attention. She attempts to bargain faster than I expected. Her head fills with air, and her ego lifts her from the earth. Naturally, I must anchor her back down to reality. She can not presume to know what I need. I do agree with her statement about Naomi, how the caged songbird chokes when she should not, but that won't convince me.

"You already served your purpose," I reply slowly, tone wrapped in the silks of solemnity. I want her to know I mean business. Rules are rules, and I don't want to change them this time. Her death is far overdue.

Naomi speaks up from across the room, drawing my attention like a magnet. The songbird defends herself only when her own death is on the line, of course. And yet I find myself smiling at the stage show. Only one round in and they start to crumble. This is so much easier than I anticipated.

"As much as I enjoy your bickering, it's time to move on. The game decides who lives tonight." I turn toward the board again, chalk resting between my gloved fingertips.

Naomi guesses correctly a second time, and then a third. I assume she has spotted the pattern.

s _ _ i n g

Secretly, I think this is meant to be.

I pivot slowly to face Cleo. "Naomi wins," I report, carefully. I watch her for a moment, allowing the weight to sink. The reaper breathes down her neck a second time and wraps his ivory bones around her neck.

"Any last words?"

As I set the chalk down, I slide quickly to her side. If she speaks, I do not plan to listen. I hope, as I kick the bucket with the full force of my foot, that she chokes on her final pleas.

The noose constricts her delicate throat like a hungry snake. I wonder how it feels to gasp for breath and find nothing. Reaching for something she cannot grasp. A new experience for her, I presume, and her last.

I do not check on Naomi until Cleo's face tints blue. Whether she chooses to watch is on her own conscience, but she cannot escape it. Even if she closes her eyes, she will hear the retches in Cleo's throat and the tightening of the rope.

"Congratulations, Naomi. You live."

As she said, may the best woman win.

"For now."

Naomi is a better person than Cleo, but she has sins of her own. She is imperfect. My hatred does not fall any shorter in comparison.

I grab something she cannot see, and jam it into her arm. A syringe. "This is a paralytic," I say, tossing it aside in favor of a knife. I scrape it across her rope until she is safe from the noose's clutches. "In a moment, your arms and legs will feel like jelly. Don't worry though, your organs won't shut down." That would defeat the purpose.

From the shadows, I gather my equipment and slink toward her ragdoll body. My movements are slow and agonizingly meticulous as I kneel by her side, a needle and thread in hand. "It's funny, what I'm about to do. Silencing the songbird." I position my needle below her lip. "It won't make a difference though. Cleo is dead, but you will still be the same. You don't sing when it matters."

I jam the needle through her flesh. Blood oozes, staining porcelain skin. I feel nothing.

I return to my board and use my chalk to finish the word.

s e w i n g

"It was so easy! Why didn't either of you think of this?" I taunt.

Once I am finished, her mouth is sewn completely shut. Gently, I wrap a blindfold around her eyes. Now I will send her back into the world the way she has always been.

Useless.