More Than I Should
Caitlyn refused to look Vi in the eyes. Instead, she focused on the incident report in her hands. “I reviewed the report. You’re free to go.”
Vi blinked, trying to process the words. She tried to keep her tone neutral. “That’s it?”
Caitlyn nodded. “That’s it.”
“Why’d you come all the way down here?” Vi asked.
Caitlyn shrugged indifferently, trying to mask her concern for Vi. “Procedure.”
“You could have sent anyone.”
Vi’s words opened a door for Caitlyn — one she didn’t even realise was there. She made out the truth slowly, word by word. She tried to keep her professionalism in check, but Vi saw her mask crack. “I…had to make sure you’re okay.”
Vi stood, and Caitlyn took a half-step back. “So now you care?” Vi demanded. “After a month of radio silence? After you left me in the rain, telling me you fear what they have to say about us? Why now?”
Caitlyn scowled. “I couldn’t leave you here feeling like no one cared about you. Like I don’t care about you.”
Vi ran her fingers through her hair. “Still feels like you don’t.”
“That’s not fair,” Caitlyn snapped, her tone cold and sharp. “You think I wanted to leave things like that? Do you have any idea —” She stopped herself, squaring her shoulders, and Vi saw her personal side slipping away, replaced by a layer of professionalism.
“Go on,” Vi shot back, almost defensively. She pretended not to care but in truth she was relieved to see Caitlyn again. A part of her was glad Caitlyn hadn’t turned to alcohol like she had, but another part of her was bitter. The breakup didn’t seem to pain Caitlyn as much as it did with Vi.
“I’ve been sitting here, drowning in it, trying to figure out what I did wrong, and you just —” Vi’s voice broke as she held back tears. “You don’t get to walk in here and act like everything’s fine!”
“I don’t think everything’s fine, Vi,” Caitlyn answered. She was clearly trying to stay calm but couldn’t help almost matching Vi’s energy. “I couldn’t ignore this. Couldn’t ignore you.”
They stood in tense silence, eye-to-eye. Caitlyn broke the stare first, stepping aside and leaving the doorway open for Vi.
“You’re free to go. That’s all that there is to this.”
Vi’s fists clenched at her sides. She wanted to argue, to yell, to demand answers from Caitlyn, but she knew it would do her no good. Instead, she moved past Caitlyn, but she didn’t step out of the cell quite yet.
“The guy I beat up…” Vi struggled to form the words, feeling as though there was a rubber plug in her throat. “He said…he was talking crap about you. About us. Said a pairing between a Kiramman and a Zaunite would never work out. Called you a…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but by the looks of it Caitlyn understood what had been said.
Vi stepped out into the hallway, but not before casting one forlorn, worried glance at Caitlyn. Caitlyn hadn’t moved, instead standing there like a statue, her expression unreadable.
“I still care about you, Vi,” Caitlyn called back. “Maybe…more than I should.”
The words struck Vi’s core like a tuning fork, but she refused to let it show. Her brow furrowed, and she traipsed out of the station.
~~~
Vi collapsed onto her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as the day’s events replayed in her mind.
Caitlyn had come to release her. Personally. Out of all the officers in Piltover, Caitlyn had made the trip herself. Why? Because she still cared? That’s what Caitlyn had said — but Vi couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
How could someone who had left her crying in the rain, shattered and alone, just show up a month later and claim they still cared?
She wanted to believe it. Deep down, a part of her longed to grab onto Caitlyn’s words, to take them at face value, and let the pain subside. She’d seen it — felt it, even — in the way Caitlyn looked at her earlier, in the softness buried beneath her sharp professionalism. It was real. Caitlyn cared.
But the bitterness wouldn’t let her have it.
If Caitlyn cared so much, why had she been so calm and composed this whole time? Why had she moved on like nothing happened, while Vi was drowning every night in a sea of bad memories and cheap beer? It felt so...uneven. So unfair.
Maybe Caitlyn hadn’t moved on, not really. But it looked like she had, and that was enough to twist the knife. Vi wanted to hate her for it. She wanted a reason—any reason—to shove Caitlyn out of her heart for good.
"She doesn’t care," Vi muttered into the empty room. “And if she doesn’t care, why the hell should I?”
The words felt hollow even as she said them.
She sat up, glaring at the bottle sitting on the edge of her nightstand. It’d been her answer to everything lately. Dull the ache, blur the edges. But all it ever did was leave her with a pounding headache and the same nagging questions when she woke up.
Vi grabbed the bottle, fingers tightening around the neck. For a moment, she considered throwing it against the wall, watching it shatter like her resolve to stop thinking about Caitlyn. Instead, she set it down carefully.
Her jaw clenched. Caitlyn had left her broken, but she wouldn’t let herself stay that way.
“She doesn’t care,” Vi said again, her voice firmer this time. “So I’m done caring, too.”
And yet, no matter how fiercely she repeated it, a part of her knew she wasn’t done. Not yet.
~~~
Vi glanced briefly at the headliner on the front page of Piltover Times.
The bold letters screamed at her, Breaking news: Councilor Kiramman gone missing.
Vi scanned the article. She’d last been seen in the Councilor’s board room two nights ago, and she was allegedly the last to leave after a late-night meeting. It was speculated that she’d been kidnapped on the way out, since her secretary and chauffeur would have been with her the whole way back to the Kiramman mansion. Piltover’s Enforcers were investigating the situation.
For a brief moment, Vi’s thoughts weren’t on Mrs Kiramman but rather, Caitlyn. How had she been holding up the past two days? Was she investigating, too? Had they found any leads?
Then Vi was irritated at herself for thinking that way. What happened to not caring about that rich, unhinged mongoose?
As much as Vi tried to put her thoughts on Caitlyn in the back of her mind, they constantly resurfaced, with the same questions piercing her mind, countered by her own conscious scolding for going back on her word.
Eventually, Vi found herself standing outside the police station where Caitlyn worked. It was late afternoon, and the station was buzzing with activity, with Enforcers streaming in and out of it, with a few casting curious glances at Vi.
Vi knew what she had to do. Walk into the station, up a flight of steps, down the hall and turn to the right, where she would be back in the room where she’d first met Caitlyn.
She sighed. Just a few minutes should be fine.
~~~
Caitlyn had barely slept in the past two days.
Since her mother’s disappearance had been reported, her father had been understandably distraught. Between having to look after him and investigating the case, she’d barely had time to eat or sleep.
Now, as she straggled into her office after a two-hour meeting, she could not have been more surprised to find Vi standing there, staring at her investigation board.
Caitlyn sighed. She didn’t even want to think about their last interaction at the moment, and she’d been avoiding the topic with herself for days, but now she was forced to come face-to-face with the one person she did not want to see.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Vi.
Vi turned, and for a moment, her eyes flashed with worry as she took in Caitlyn’s bedraggled state. She hid it well, replacing it instantly with a layer of calmness and indifference.
“Just wanted to…check in on you,” she answered grudgingly, as though she didn’t want to admit it. “How’s it going?”
“Well, let’s see,” Caitlyn said. “I’ve been investigating for two days straight and gotten nowhere. The only so-called evidence left to theorise with is a cigarette that hasn’t even been used. My father’s a wreck, and I’m on the verge of becoming one.”
She glanced up at Vi and saw a dash of concern flickering in her eyes.
“The cigarette is the key,” Vi said. She traced her finger along the edge of the board and circled a photo of the cigarette — new and unused, yet the purple inside was visible.
“You’re not a detective,” Caitlyn answered snappily. “Why should I believe you?”
Vi scowled. “It was an undercity gang attack. The purple stuff in the cigarette? That’s Shimmer. It’s a Shimmer cigarette.”
She took the photo down from the board and handed it to Caitlyn. “There’s only one gang in the undercity that produces Shimmer cigarettes. See the logo? Confirms my suspicions.”
Caitlyn frowned. “And you know all this because…?”
Vi shrugged. “I’m Zaunite. When I was still living in Zaun, the gang wasn’t as influential as they are now. Today, they pretty much rule the undercity. They invented Shimmer cigarettes, but it was copyrighted as a trade secret. They monopolise the market, and the steady sales fuel their gang activities.”
“How do you know it wasn’t someone who bought the cigarette and it was the gang itself?” Caitlyn asked.
“The cigarette’s unused,” Vi answered. “This gang…they use the cigarette as a calling card of sorts. When they commit crimes, they drop it somewhere as though it were an accident, but that’s not it. It was left there on purpose because they want us to know it's them.”
Caitlyn sighed. She didn’t want to admit it, but Vi’s reasoning was one of the most solid explanations for the cigarette she’d heard. Vi was from the undercity, too, and if what she was saying was true…
“Why would they want us to find them, though?” she asked Vi.
“They’re holding your mother hostage,” Vi said. “They want us to go down to the undercity and negotiate for her life. This gang has done kidnappings before, but never an elite like this. But they always do it the same way anyway — kidnap someone, leave no trace other than the cigarette, lure people into the undercity for hostage negotiation.”
“Why can’t they come up here?”
Vi rolled her eyes. “They know you’re desperate. If you go down there, you’ll be on their terms. It’s advantageous to them, and besides, they have leverage against you.”
Caitlyn scoffed. “Thousands of studies have shown that the kidnapper won’t hurt the hostage so as not to sabotage the receiving of the ransom.”
Vi gritted her teeth in exasperation. “This is an undercity gang, Caitlyn. It’s Smeech. Do you know who Smeech is? No? I thought so.”
“He’s a kingpin, isn’t he?” Caitlyn said. “Uses Shimmer to control the undercity and do his bidding.”
“He’s got the money and the muscle,” Vi agreed, “but not everyone in Zaun trusts him. Or likes him. If you ask the right people, you can find your mother, since he likes to keep his hostages close. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.”
Caitlyn felt a question slipping off her tongue, then seemed to swallow it hard. She pursed her lips, as though trying to keep her offer from escaping her mouth.
Vi got up to leave. “Good luck, Cait. I…hope she’s okay. I really do.”
A million questions flashed through Caitlyn’s mind. Vi was clearly an asset to the case. She would make all the difference if she helped Caitlyn. But it was an insult to Caitlyn’s pride to ask Vi for help now, after everything she’d done to her.
But her mother…
“Vi, wait.”
Vi turned at the entrance to her office, surprised. Caitlyn squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled through gritted teeth.
“Can you…help me with the investigation?”
Vi raised an eyebrow. “I already gave you your answer. It’s Smeech. He’s got your mother and is holding her hostage in the undercity. You gotta go down there and find him yourself.”
“Vi, please.” Caitlyn hated the idea of throwing herself at Vi’s mercy now, but she had no choice if she wanted to find her mother. “If I’m going down into Zaun, I’ll need…you. None of the Enforcers are as familiar with the fissures as you are, and plus, you know who to ask.”
Vi’s expression soured. “So, being with a Zaunite’s fine when you need me, huh?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Caitlyn protested weakly. “This isn’t about us, Vi. It’s about my mother. Please, just…help me this one time. Help her.”
Vi sighed. Caitlyn could see her considering her options, weighing them out, making the decision carefully and meticulously. Vi seemed to develop a sudden interest in the carpet, and she muttered, “Fine.”
Caitlyn exhaled. “Thank you.”
“But, just to be clear,” Vi said, “I’m doing this for your mother. This mission isn’t an indication for where we stand in our relationship.”