Chapter 7
It took a moment to come to.
Another to fully get her vision back in the dim room.
The pain in her skull, the throbbing in her side. Vi was expecting it. Hell, even some of the confusion, the dull ache in her thoughts, those she could have half-anticipated too. She'd had enough concussions to recognise the signs. But where she thought she might awake on the floor of the drop after being sucker punched by Sevika in the eleventh hour, she found herself instead somewhere completely foreign to her.
Oh.
No, not quite.
She spat, an influx of acidic-tasting spittle filling her mouth, coughing, she struggled to wipe her mouth. Her hands were bound tight. There was no getting out of this. Some people think hell is all fire, all brimstone, all ash. But it’s damp, it’s cloying. It the knock of a cane on impenetrable stone. Its the drip of water into an overfilled latrine. It’s the distant smell of an explosion mixed with marred memory. Hell is the crumbling, charred facade of a factory where your heart first found it’s end.
It’s the sparkling, blinding light of a modified Valdiani on an ash-covered table, spinning like a Catherine wheel, sparking hot in her blurring vision.
“Wakey, wakey, sis.”
Was that just the ringing in her ears? The messed up way her brain was trying to tell her she was bleeding out somewhere? Or was her sister… Is that why she was…?
Her brain kicked into Stillwater mode, preservation mode. The thing that got her out of fights and sent her running home in mostly one piece. She pulled uselessly at her tied hands.
Powder? Her sore, dry throat couldn't quite push her voice out yet.
“I really thought I buried this place. But, I should have known better.”
“Powder?” The sound was croaky, desperate. Vi glanced around, trying to catch where she was coming from but it was hard in her current state.
“Nothing ever stays dead.”
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. That voice was real. Present. And it was cold, drawn and sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t think her sister would ever be capable of that. And yet…
“Are- are we alone?” Vi called out, shaking her head slightly. This was Powder. This was her baby sister. Whatever situation they were in, she needed to get them out of this godforsaken place. Needed to step up in the way she should have a decade ago.
“For now.” Her sister’s voice was barely audible but she could hear the pain, the resignation dripping from it. “Maybe forever.” Her sister’s tone turned eerily light in a second. “Wanna know a secret?”
Vi felt herself get more panicked, her lungs felt too full of the dust around her. She whipped her head, still searching. Powder continued.
“Silco thinks that he made Jinx. With all his rants and ‘Hard won lessons’, heh.” The voice chuckled. “‘Excise your doubts, Jinx! Be what they fear, Jinx.’ But everything was the same as when Vander left him. But he didn’t make Jinx.”
Vi’s stomach sank, her heart along with it. She inhaled sharply. She knew what was coming, what was happening. She felt herself sinking, felt her self dying in a cell all over again. And then the final nail closed the coffin.
“You did.”
She pressed her eyes shut tight. Pushed the tears back in. Powder was right. She was to blame. She caused all of this devastation around them. She knew that. And now, so did Powder.
“I’m sorry, Powder.” Vi’s voice was thick with regret, it hurt to speak past the bile rising in her throat. “I never meant to leave you.”
“You never left.”
Vi paused, eyes darting.
“I always heard you. Shadows in the streets. Prickles on the back of my neck. Your voice… pushing me. Picking me up when all the colours were black. You’re the reason I’m still alive.”
“I spent so many nights,” Vi felt herself crumble. She had never admitted any of this out loud. “In that shitty prison on that freezing floor, bloody, hungry. Counting the hours.” She took a deep breath, her head raising to thump lightly on the back of her chair. “And the only thing. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you.”
The light in front of her faded out, plunging the room into darkness.
“Are we…” Powders voice sounded meek, unsure, as much on the verge of tears as she felt herself. They were both vulnerable in this cloying darkness. “Still sisters?”
Vi could almost laugh. As if there was any other way they could be, as if there would be anything, anyone or any power in this world that could make her stop loving her baby sister.
“Nothing is ever going to change that.”
The heat burned on the cold skin of her face, the lighter swallowing her gasp. Powder’s face was still the same, beautiful image of her sister. But the eyes…
Vi couldn’t stop looking between them, trying to make sense of the colour. It was like staring at a stranger that she knew all too well. Powder… Jinx’s mouth twitched into something resembling Powder's smile.
“I always knew you’d come back.”
“What-” She was twisted around in her chair suddenly, the movement too quick. “What’s going on?”
The lighter was flicked forward, catching a series of candles on it’s way to clunk loudly on the other end of a long table. The scene before her was grotesque. She could just about make out the caricatures of mishmashed mannequins around them, her breath stalling and her face the perfect look of disgust as she realised who they were supposed to be. Yet, at the end of the table was a very much alive individual. The last person she thought she would have seen at this banquet of horror. Someone she had hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with again.
“He took everything from us.” Jinx hissed. “Right here he stabbed Vander in the back, just like he planned to with me.”
A crow cawed in the distance. It shuttering of wings ringing out ominously through the space. Vi could see Silco breathing heavily, heaving against the mask that wrapped it’s way across his mouth and straining against the bindings that held him to his chair.
“All the time saying you abandoned me when he knew the truth.”
Silco’s muffled protests shimmered through the air between them.
“Liar.” Jinx near growled. The vitriol in her voice made Vi’s blood run cold. “Oh, we’re missing someone.”
Vi sat still for a moment, her brain struggling to process her sister’s words. Jinx returned using her gauntlets to carry a large silver platter and matching cloche into the space. Where did she even get that- Vi caught sight of the crest on the handles as it was dumped, clanking on the table.
Oh god!
Vi’s face twisted in horror. Her breath bubbled in gasps.
Oh god, oh no, oh no, oh no,oh no, oh no,oh no, oh no,oh no, oh no,oh no, oh no,oh no, oh no…
“I paid your girlfriend a visit this morning.”
“What did you do?” Vi couldn’t keep her trembling voice even.
Jinx just looked at her. Shrugging slightly, face unnervingly placid.
“I made her a snack.”
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.
She could see her own horrified reflection in the cloche. She strained back in her seat, as if to pull away, and yet she couldn’t rip her eyes from the table. Jinx just smiled, her expression unusually drawn in the light, her pink eyes glinting, the hallows of her skull all too pronounced under pale skin.
“NO!” She screamed out, whipping her head to the side. She couldn’t look. Her vision filled with Caitlyn’s soft expression as they curled up beside each other in her bed, the feel of her lips, they way her hand fit her own, the way her thoughts intermingled with her own.
Vi… is that you?!
Her eyes flew open and landed on the platter, tears obscuring her vision of the large fluffy cupcake on the centre of the plate, a hextech crystal adorned within the pink swirls of icing.
“Oh you thought - Sheesh! I’m not that crazy.” Jinx rolled her eyes, chucking the cloche somewhere on the other side of the room. The panic Vi felt subsided into relief but only for a minute.
Vi!
Her brain whirred.
Caitlyn?
The scraping of wheels brought her into view. Dressed in a crumpled enforcers uniform, hair damp and clinging to the tears on her cheeks. Her face obscured by a tight mask with a dripping pink smile. But she was alive, she was here. They were together.
Oh, fuck, Caitlyn.
Vi, we- I can’t-
“Powder.” She yelled out, eyes tracking her sisters drawn out movements. “Leave her out of this!” She held her sister’s gaze, anger coursing through the guilt. Jinx stopped, her brows furrowing and her mouth drawn into a line. She scoffed, pulling away from the back of Caitlyn chair and walking away. Vi’s heart broke watching Caitlyn wince away from the movement. She looked terrified.
I’m gonna get you out of here, Cupcake, hold on!
I-I’m not leaving you. She's-
It’s okay, you’ll be okay.
“Where should I sit, sis?” She watched Jinx pace around the back her chair. “That’s your choice, really.” Vi’s eyes flicked to the two clearly labelled empty chairs. She swallowed thickly. A revolver was slapped into her hand, it’s cold metal pressing into the blisters of her battered hands.
“Make her go away.” Jinx whispered, “Please?”
It was the same voice she used when she asked for one more bedtime story, one last piece of candy. It was Powder’s voice but the feeling behind it… That was something so surreal that Vi felt a bubble of deranged laughter attempt to fight it’s way out in a gasping breath. She searched Jinx eyes for any indication that this was a bad joke but there was nothing but sincerity in their shinning depths.
“Send her on her way and-”
Vi! Caitlyn’s choked, desperate moans broke through the tense silence between her and her sister. Please, please, don’t! I beg you, you can leave! I'll let you go, I'll forget about you, I’ll help you both escape, I’ll make sure no one finds you, I’ll-
Both sisters turned towards the noise. Caitlyn was struggling in vain against the chair, panicked eyes locked on Vi’s face.
“And…” Jinx continued, turning her back on her sister’s soulmate. “You can have Powder back.”
Please, I know you want to help her-
“I- I,” It was hard to breath. A flicker of doubt crossed her mind and she hoped to God Caitlyn couldn’t see it. “I can’t.”
She winced away.
Caitlyn, I won’t ever hurt you.
Jinx scoffed in disbelief and the gun was ripped from her hands as suddenly as it was placed there.
“No! Powder.” She watched in horror as Caitlyn cowered away from the cold metal held steady to her temple. “We can just go! Leave and never come back.”
Powder looked taken aback, as if that had never been a thought in her mind. Her hand slumped, only slightly as she considered the offer.
“Where could we go?” Her soft, cracking voice made Vi’s heart still. But as soon as she had an inkling of hope, it was ripped away as her sister shook her head violently, muttering to no one in particular. Pointing the gun at the demented dummies sat around the table. Vi's gaze trailed back to Caitlyn.
I won’t let her hurt you, Cupcake.
Vi, she’s not okay. I know she’s your sister but she’s not okay, the way- when she took me-
Calm down, Cait, you gotta try and stay calm. I’ll get you out of here.
She’ll kill you!
She won’t.
You don’t understand, you don’t know her anymore. She’s not the same!
I’ll take my chances, Cupcake.
Vi, please-
“It’s true!” Vi said desperately, addressing her sister, trying to break her back into reality again. “We’ll put this behind us and you’ll never have to see him again, Powder.”
Silco’s muffled nod was faint from the opposite end of the table. Powder didn’t so much lower the gun as sling it behind her as she reached over and pulled the mask away from his face. For a moment, Vi was hopeful that he’d play along, understand that she was sincere but that they all needed to get out of this twisted situation.
“Her name is Jinx!” He croaked, his gaze narrowed on Vi’s with a look of disgust before diverting right back to his blue-braided captor. “She’s lying. You’ll be with her a day before she realises you aren’t that girl anymore and turns her back on you.”
Her sister’s lip trembled, pulled for a moment between her teeth as she turned back to Vi, her expression vulnerable but the gun still weighing heavy between them.
“You aren’t ‘lying’, you wouldn’t lie to me?” Vi rapidly shook her head mouthing no instinctually. Powder’s gaze flickered around again, she muttered something under her breath.
“I’m not lying! I’m on your side.”
Vi you can’t possibly-
Shut up, Caitlyn! She’s my sister!
“I promise.”
Vi, please think for a second about what she's doing here!
I can help her, she's only like this cause I wasn't-
“Shut up!” Jinx said to no one, a round from her gun bouncing into one of the stuffed mannequins.
I think… I’ve found a way to cut through my restraints.
Good, get out of here, Cupcake.
I’m not leaving you!
“They offered me everything.” Silco spoke. “Independence, a seat at the table. All in return for you. They can all burn! Everyone betrays us, Jinx. Vander. Her!” His head jerked violently towards Vi but his eyes stayed fixed on Jinx. “They will never understand us. You are my daughter. I’ll never forsake you.” Jinx’s shoulders slumped a little.
“Drop the gun!”
Fuck yes, cupcake, you did it!
Vi looked up at her soulmate, her smile fading as she saw her raise a huge weapon and pointed directly at her sister.
Caitlyn, no, she's my sister!
Caitlyn ignored her, stern face twisted into something Vi couldn’t recognise. Jinx stood calmly, surveying the woman before her with an unimpressed air, her hand twitching on the gun.
“No.” Vi gasped out. “Please!” She didn’t even know who she was addressing anymore. Maybe it didn't matter.
With a battle cry, Jinx raised to shoot but Caitlyn was quicker, a burst of bullets pelting the concrete ground.
Wait!
“Stop!” She heard more than felt herself screaming, as if the sound was disconnected from her body. The ropes constricting her chest cut into her circulation, though she couldn’t feel the pain of them through the pain of her heart breaking in two.
“Drop the gun.” Caitlyn’s voice was too level.
“Wait!” Vi called out aloud. “She’s my sister.”
“Vi, she’s too far gone.” You don’t know what she did… what she’s capable of.
Please, Caitlyn, please just leave her, just get out of here.
No.
Jinx’s giggle was harsh as she placed her gun on the table in front of Silco, raising her hands to her ears with slumped shoulders. An exaggerated frown dusting her youthful face. Caitlyn’s grip tightened on the gun.
Cait, stop! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
She saw Caitlyn’s clear blue gaze flick to her. Hesitating. But then there was a flash of movement. She barely registered what was happening, barely able to call out a warning and Caitlyn was struck down by her sister.
Cait!
There was no answer. No familiar feeling that there she was there to hear her. Powder held the weapon to the prone figure. Vi was alone. She couldn’t register the words Silco spoke beyond the thumping in her chest. She scanned the woman on the ground, the stuttered rise of her chest calming her if only slightly. Her attention was back on her sister once she knew Caitlyn wasn’t getting up just yet.
“Damnit Powder!” She felt the roar rip from her, spittle fly from her desperate mouth. She had to break through to her sister before it was too late. “Remember who you are, I know you remember! Picture Mylo! Claggor! Vander! Dad! Mom! Me.”
Her sister staggered backwards, every word hitting like a bullet, clutching her chest, doubling over as the memories cascaded through her. Vi felt awful, but she was at the end of the line, the point of no return. If her sister was in there, and she was certain she fucking was, she had to break through to her. Claw her back from the depths. Vi was no stranger to getting her hands dirtied, bloodied. She would do it for her, no questions asked. She always would.
But...
She could have never imagined the spray of bullets firing their way across the place settings and towards their final mark. Silco’s blood sprayed red towards her, droplets landing just short of her wrists onto the floor. She hadn’t even noticed the gun in his hand until it had slipped to the floor.
Oh.
Oh Powder.
It seemed the choice was taken from her, taken from both sisters, after all.