¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 006 ] keep your friends close and your enemies closer

LIKE A CAGED TIGER, Iko paced circles into the marble tiles. Inside the Justice Building, the waiting room and its grave silence felt more like a mausoleum, a tombstone of cold, white marble walls ornamented with silver detail. It was quiet enough in this cavity of a timeless space that Iko could hear the shuffle of Peacekeepers standing guard on the other side of the door, could hear the buzzing static feedback leaking from their comms, could make out every shift of their weapons as they fidgeted in subtle boredom, could recognise the familiar, rhythmic clicks of a magazine getting released and shoved back in, over and over.

Promptly after Reaping ceremony, Alex and Iko had been escorted into the Justice Building, flanked by Peacekeepers. They hadn't spoken once. Not even the few precious seconds alone, away from all the cameras and the crowd. Iko had caught Alex glancing at her askance a couple times, but she let the anger flex its talons in her chest, sharpen its teeth against her bones. When the Peacekeepers led them both to their separate waiting rooms, Iko hadn't met his searching gaze once, not even before the Peacekeepers showed her into the room.

Iko clung to her icy composure until they shut the heavy oakwood doors. The moment she heard the lock turn, she let the control slip. Let the anger surge through her blood, char her veins black. Nobody was going to visit her, anyway, so she used this time to open up the channels of emotion. Channels that she kept shut, locked and bolted, always. Her mother was wheelchair bound, excused from attending the ceremony and unable to look her daughter in the eyes. Iko could count on one hand how many people cared about her, and they were all gathered in the other room, visiting the only person she would lay down her life for.

You are alone. Always have and always will be. The weight of solitude slammed into her chest full-force. But that was alright. It's how she survived. She didn't need anyone. She'd grown up without a father, ignored by her mother. Family meant something different to her.

Save for the plush armchair sitting in the centre of the room like an executioner's throne, the room lacked any trace of warmth. But Iko couldn't sit. Couldn't let herself stagnate. Couldn't stop pacing furious circles around the room, prowling back and forth, the radiant fury wicking off her shoulders like poisonous fume. Because the world was crashing down around her, chunks of debris falling like flaming missiles at her feet, threatening to take her with it, threatening to crush her beneath the weight. Everything was slipping right out of her hands. Slipping out of control, spiralling into chaos. aAll while her mind screamed at the boy in the other room, ripped holes in the walls and tore brick from structure: How could you do this to me? How could you do this to your family? Do you realise only one of us can get out alive? Do you realise you've ruined all my plans?

   "It's all falling apart," Iko murmured under her breath, curling her fingers into fists, nails staking into her palms, harsh enough to split the skin. A flicker of resentment licked at her guts, searing her organs, ugly and sharp and growing. "It's all falling apart now."

Since the moment Alex spilled blood under her knife, the threads of their lives have run irreversibly intertwined. Inseparable binary stars in gravitational orbit, sharing everything from water and snacks to body warmth and flimsy mattresses to houses and memories, traded secrets and stories and scars sheltered under blankets and in the dark. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish where one ended and the other began. Sometimes it was so easy to see how they'd never let go. Everything Iko has ever let go of had claw marks in them.

When you spend your life by someone for that long the bond of trust solidifies into something unbreakable. Apart, you rest easy knowing they will do everything in their power to keep this bond alive. Together, you are the upper echelon of invincibility. Standing at the apex of the world with the sun under your feet and the world on its knees your symbiosis burns bright and fierce as a star. With this tunnel vision you might kill for each other, you might die for each other.