"I'll always protect you..."
She listened to the pounding of his heartbeat against her ear, a drumming representation of the fleeting life that they had ahead of them. And they laid there in silence, every unspoken word folding into that one promise, as two children carelessly fell in love, just to be helplessly ripped apart. The sun crept up, the sleepless night giving into day, giving a few borrowed hours to be clean, free of the blood to be shed by their hands.
She gazed upon his face, her eyes steeled, a mirroring of her stone-cold heart, of her emotionless intellect. And he traced his fingers along her face, outlining the dark stars splattered across the bridge of her nose, sketching constellations on her creamy skin, grazing his thumb against her velvety blood-red lips, along the keen line of her jawbone, and through the curtain of midnight black hair fanned out upon the silk pillow.
Through their last bargained moments, lips met lips in lustful kisses, assurances murmured beneath uttered breaths, hazel eyes matching blue, as the boy slipped out of the door, leaving behind him tangled sheets and the girl who had his heart in her hands; he was back in his room before they could ever be exposed, and it was as if the memory was eradicated as if the stolen kisses in the dead of night were nothing but a mirage.
She should have known to never believe promises. Because now she is lying there paralyzed, the blood oozing down her face, into her eyes, and her nose and her mouth; she can taste metal. Her pulse sprints in her throat as if it is strangling her; she can't speak, can't stand, can't breathe, and oh, God, she is dying.
"Clove!" The pain in his heart is unexplainable when he discovers her folded in on herself; it is as if his heart is going to shatter, split into two parts, or even stop beating altogether. He collapses to his knees, his weapon slack in his hand, and he can't breathe seeing her like this.
The blood stains her snow-white skin, trickling down her face, below her eyes like teardrops of crimson, and burbling from her lips. A dent bends her skull in a disturbing crevice, ruby fluid matting her hair to her scalp and her forehead; he can't see her gorgeous eyes.
His fingers graze against her skin, tainting with the blood only he is entitled to spill as he strokes the hair away, studying her eyes as she stares at him, life clearly a battle for her.
"No, no, no, no! It was supposed to be both of us, Clove! We were going to win!" He settles her head on his knees, watching as the life slowly exudes from her body, her skin an ailing nearly grey, the malicious gleam in her eyes flickering out like a candle, her freckles veiled beneath the stream of thick blood; she is dying.
Her lips shudder as she strives to choke out the words that cling to her throat, and Cato takes her frigid hand in his.
"You-your e-eyes...th-they l-look l-like th-the o-ocean..." She dawdles off, her eyes glossing over, her final words, her oath of love never leaving her bloody lips. She's dead.
A forbidden teardrop trickles onto her face from the blonde boy with ocean eyes as he shuts her eyelids because he can't bear to confront the reality that she is gone, and he is abandoned, and he will never see her again.
He bows down, setting a kiss upon her frozen, lifeless lips, a kiss tasting of blood, her blood, his blood.
"I'm going to win this for both of us now, Clove," he murmurs to her as if she is still breathing and listening to him, as if he expects her to reply. "I promise."
But with one arrow, the ocean-eyed boy took his final breath, and with him, the promises whispered upon pillows, murmured against lips in prohibited kisses, promises from a boy to a girl who kept his heart in her hands, died.
"I'm sorry I failed you."
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