“
Haymitch isn't thinking of arenas, but something else. "Johanna's back in the hospital."
I assumed Johanna was fine, had passed her exam, but simply wasn't assigned to a sharp shooters' unit. She's wicked with a throwing axe but about average with a gun. "Is she hurt? What happened?"
"It was while she was on the Block. They try to ferret out a soldier's potential weakness. So they flooded the street, " says Haymitch.
This doesn't help. Johanna can swim. At least, I seem to remember her swimming around some in the Quarter Quell. Not like Finnick, of course, but none of us are like Finnick. "So?"
"That's how they tortured her in the Capitol. Soaked her then used electric shocks," says Haymitch. "In the Block, she had some kind of flashback. Panicked, didn't know where she was. She's back under sedation."
Finnick and I just stand there as if we've lost the ability to respond.
I think of the way Johanna never showers. How she forced herself into the rain like it was acid that day. I had attributed her misery to morphling withdrawal.
"You two should go see her. You're as close to friends as she's got," says Haymitch.
That makes the whole thing worse. I don't really know what's between Johanna and Finnick, but I hardly know her. No family. No friends.Not so much as a token from District 7 to set beside her regulation clothes in her anonymous drawer.
Nothing.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
“
The United States is baiting China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them. We’re like the sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try, it’s bang bang. The coming war will be so severe that only one superpower can win, and that’s us folks. This is why the EU is in such a hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming, and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment.
”
”
Henry Kissinger
“
You sold a story last week," said Pettit, "about a gun fight in an Arizona mining town in which the hero drew his Colt's .45 and shot seven bandits as fast as they came in the door. Now, if a six-shooter could—"
"Oh, well," said I, "that's different. Arizona is a long way from New York. I could have a man stabbed with a lariat or chased by a pair of chaparreras if I wanted to, and it wouldn't be noticed until the usual error-sharp from around McAdams Junction isolates the erratum and writes in to the papers about it." (from "The Plutonian Fire")
”
”
O. Henry (Selected Stories)
“
Bok knows everything about me, including my thing with auras. Truth is, though, he isn't much good as a bodyguard. Bok is a shade heavier than an eating disorder, has a cute button nose and long, silky, straight hair most girls would kill for. We've been friends since prep when he used to sit behind me in class and hit me with his ruler. I put up with it for weeks, and then one day when the teacher stepped out of the room I pushed him off his chair and watched as he fell flat on his skinny, pretty arse.
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
Now, in death, he looked to Louis like the old Church. The mouth, so small and bloody, filled with needle-sharp cat’s teeth, was frozen in a shooter’s snarl. The dead eyes seemed furious. It was as if, after the short and placid stupidity of his life as a neuter, Church had rediscovered his real nature in dying. ‘Yeah,
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
We moved forward towards and then across a manioc field in the direction of a palm plantation. Then keeping among the palms to avoid observation by any lurking VC sharp shooters we pressed on as ordered to a point at the edge of the plantation and just short of a tobacco field. There we immediately took incoming rifle and machine gun rounds that missed and whizzed off through the palm trees. There was a muddy ditch at the edge of the plantation but we could not use it for cover due to its knee deep muddy ooze, so we moved on. Charlie caught us on the move with a fusillade of rounds that wounded two men, and while scrambling to take what little cover available an RPG round came, missed the forward guys only to exploded among those behind with the blood spatter soaking everyone. It was a dreadful sight for sure.
Sergeant Walker, author of Southlands Snuffys.
”
”
Sergent Walker
“
a nightmare, hope that in closing our eyes we might wake up to that other life, back on the other side of the screen, where we can watch from the safety of our couches and bedrooms, from bus and train seats, from our offices, anyplace that is not there, on the ground, playing like we’re dead so not playing at all, we’ll run like ghosts from our own dead bodies in hopes of getting away from the shots and the loud quiet of waiting for the next shot to fire, waiting for another sharp hot line to cut across a life, cut off breath, bring too quickly the heat and then cooling of too-soon death. We’ve expected the shooter to appear in our lives in the same way we know death is and always has been coming for us, with its decisive scythe, its permanent cut. We
”
”
Tommy Orange (There There)
“
She gave me a keen smile. ‘You wouldn’t need to take on any clients. Just participate in the mingling part. The remuneration would be substantial.’ I clutched my sequinned beach bag, trying to ignore the thought of my mother’s reaction if she heard about me ‘mingling’ in a brothel. My
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
But that was all. We
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
I stared across the desk at the psychiatrist and tried not to fiddle. Betsy
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
known since I was a kid. A no-nonsense type of shrink. Her
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
trouble. Which was fine when she was a tearaway teen, but not so useful now she’s trying to run a hipster urban cafe, invent the perfect trendy dessert, and stop feeding the many
”
”
Marianne Delacourt (Sharp Shooter (Tara Sharp, #1))
“
Not many people traveled this close to the Blackened Forest—a vast swath of the Rockies where the trees were black as soot and hard as stone, petrified for all eternity, frozen in time—but those that did were precisely the kind you’d expect in this hostile world: calloused, alone, and harboring a death wish. Most importantly, however, it was home to dozens of contract Slayer teams, one of which she was here to find.
”
”
Aaron J Webber
“
God slowly raised his gun and aimed it at that bastard’s forehead, but God knew he wasn’t going to have to take the shot. Hansen took one final step backward and as soon as his heel landed, a single loud pop rang out in the silence. A split second later Hansen’s head jerked back from the impact of the bullet lodged in his skull. God had talked him back far enough that he was within visibility of the sharp shooters. God
”
”
A.E. Via (Nothing Special)
“
I can see perfectly and clearly.
And my glasses are still on the nightstand.
I bolt upright and look around my room. Everything – every poster, every tool, every spare part, every spool of wire – I can see it all crisp and clear. I saw every strand of Mom’s hair in perfect precision. Her tired eyes. The steam rising from her mug. It should’ve all been a blurred mess of colored blobs. I should’ve had to drag my glasses on before any of my surroundings made sense.
I grab my glasses and slide them on. Everything shifts out of focus. I take them off and my world sharpens. I scowl down at my frames like they’ve betrayed me somehow. Then I fumble for my cell phone and dial Porter’s number.
“Alex?”
“You have to do something,” I say, panicked. “I woke up and now I’m Peter freaking Parker.”
“Peter who?”
“I can see. Like 20/20. I don’t need my glasses anymore.”
“Oh. Well, that must be a residual from Shooter Delaney. She was a sharp shooter, you know.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me how to reverse it.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone. “You want… your bad vision back?”
“Yes.”
“…Why?”
“Because my other option is explaining to my parents how I have perfect vision all of a sudden. I’m pretty sure they won’t buy the whole ‘bitten by a radioactive spider’ thing.
”
”
M.G. Buehrlen (The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare (Alex Wayfare, #1))
“
two sharp brown eyes surveyed the room like drive-by shooters.
”
”
C.J. Box (Free Fire (Joe Pickett, #7))
“
them. Inevitably they bring into the organization and promote to higher levels men like themselves. The moral cancer thus introduced cannot be extirpated simply by removing the evil genius at the top. It may take a generation under a good management to purge the organization of the unprincipled sharp-shooters brought in by a bad management. Hence it is unwise to look for a quick turnaround in any organization whose management has demonstrated a lack of moral principle.
”
”
Thomas William Phelps (100 to 1 in the Stock Market: A Distinguished Security Analyst Tells How to Make More of Your Investment Opportunities)
“
On one occasion, for instance, when his position had been " spotted" by enemy sharp-shooters, he got a bullet through his cap, one through his shoulder-strap, one through the inside of his sleeve close to his heart, and fifty-three others near enough for him to hear them pass—all in less than an hour.
”
”
Boyd Cable (Grapes of Wrath)
“
The Origin"
of what happened is not in language—
of this much I am certain.
Six degrees south, six east—
and you have it: the bird
with the blue feathers, the brown bird—
same white breasts, same scaly
ankles. The waves between us—
house light and transform motion
into the harboring of sounds in language.
Where there is newsprint
the fact of desire is turned from again—
and again. Just the sense
that what remains might well be held up—
later, as an ending.
Twice I have walked through this life—
once for nothing, once
for facts: fairy-shrimp in the vernal pool—
glassy-winged sharp-shooter
on the failing vines. Count me—
among the animals, their small
committed calls.—
Count me among
the living. My greatest desire—
to exist in a physical world.
”
”
Jane Mead
“
This is like something out of a movie. Time hopping, sharp shooters, intrigue.
”
”
Tracey Jane Jackson (The Bride Price (Civil War Brides #1))