Chapter 1
Caitlyn Kiramman was not prepared for the undercity. She should’ve known that from the start, but her determination had always managed to blind her. If she died in these confusing, twisting, dark streets, it would be no one’s fault but her own. She couldn’t even blame Vi; the pink haired girl hadn’t even meant to get separated from her.
It truly was like a different world down here, and she stuck out like she was from a different dimension. She tried her best to keep her face down, to keep her limbs tucked close to herself, but the people lining the streets and alleyways looked at her like they could smell the Piltover blood in her veins. Actually, maybe they could. She shouldn’t have used so much perfume that morning.
Wandering the streets wasn’t getting her anywhere except to more dank streets that smelt awful and looked the same. It certainly wasn’t getting her back to Vi; her only hope of getting back to Piltover and navigating the confusing undercity. Cait was fresh out of options. What else could she choose to do but keep walking?
On a particularly dark street, she starts to feel shivers up and down her back and a distinct sensation. A buzzing in the back of her head, like she was being watched. And then there was a warm, tight grip on her arm, pulling her to the side and deeper into the depths of darkness.
“Hey, there.” A raspy, feminine voice says, the owner of which was hiding her face in a shroud of shadows. “You look lost, Piltie.”
“Let me go!” Caitlyn says harshly. She twists her wrist and struggles back, but it only seems to bring herself further into the girl’s grip.
“Calm down.” The voice says, annoyed.
The girl steps forward, just a little little bit into the fading neon light of the streets of Zaun. Her face is heart shaped, with a sharp chin and a distinct nose. Her eyes are wide and blue, and fit perfectly onto her pretty face. Two long, blue braids trail off the back of her head.
Cait’s eyes trail the blue braids all the way down onto the ground, the ends of the girl’s hair just barely touching the wet cement of the alley. Very long braids indeed.
“Who are you?” Caitlyn demands, still furiously trying to escape the strangers grasp. “What do you want from me?”
“You-“ The girl cuts herself off, narrowing her eyes and continuing to grip her wrist. She tilts her head, almost like a confused bird. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here on classified business. If you mean here, on this road, I got separated from my guide.” Cait lifts her chin indignantly. “Now, if you’d please excuse me, I must find Vi-“
“Vi?” The blue haired girl gasps, her wet eyes widening to an impossible size.
Cait purses her lips, regretting letting that name slip. She’s not sure how this girl know her, but she doubts it can turn out to be anything good.
“No, no, it can’t…” The girl shuts her eyes tight, seeming to be fighting tears. “You’re lying!” She snarls.
The woman caught in her grasp is taken aback by the outburst. She doesn’t know what to say to someone so clearly troubled by a mention of one name, so instead she stays silent, watching and planning how to escape this situation.
“You’re that enforcer girl, then.” Her voice hardens. “It’s true.” She breathes deeply.
“I-“ Cait scans the girls face, searching for any clue as to what’s occurring in this moment and what occurred between her and Vi. “I’m not sure what your…connection is, but really, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. So if you have no use for me, could you please just let me go?”
The blue haired girl in front of her looks up, a peculiar expression on her charming face. “Oh, but I think you’re a bit mistaken, little miss enforcer. I have lots of uses for you.” Her voice is filled with morbid glee, a laugh at the end of her words.
Before Caitlyn can even process it, there’s a sharp pain in the top of her head and then she’s out cold.
-
Caitlyn wakes up to rough ropes digging into the skin of her wrists and the fabric of her pants. She struggles, briefly, and then stops to even out her breathing and try to actually asses the situation.
Think, Caitlyn, Think. What did they say about getting kidnapped? What were you supposed to do?
Well, first, you weren’t supposed to get kidnapped. She’s already failed that. There’s still hope of that if she could just focus. Panic clouds her vision, blurring colours together and filling her mind with nothing more than pure, blind fear, like a rabid animal or a rat caught in a trap. Unlike the dumb rats, Cait hadn’t entered the trap for food; she had entered it for her own stupidity and pride.
She hears scraping, metal screeching softly from somewhere near her. Someone sharpening a knife, maybe? Her breathing quickens when she thinks about the implications of such a thing.
Focus, Caitlyn, focus.
“Finally awake?” A different screech this time, like the turning of an old chair. Yes, that’s what it was.
Fuck. Even though her vision was still just blobs and blurs of colour, Cait could see her approaching. Blue at the top of her figure and black and purple all the way down, hips swishing back and forth.
“Calm down, there, princess.” The blue haired girl is in front of her now, leg to leg with the chair. “Not gonna hurt you. Yet.”
“What do you want from me?” Caitlyn manages to spit out.
The girl simply laughs. She laughs in a way that makes shivers crawl up Cait’s spine, a way that she knows will haunt her dreams.
“If it’s money, my family can pay you. Just…let me go.” She hates the way her voice cracks as she pleads with her captor. Despises it.
“Hm,” The blue haired girl considers. “I bet they can, Kiramman.” Her last name is spat out with a harsh amount of venom. “I know they can. Lucky for you, I don’t really care about money.”
Caitlyn breaths heavily, staring at the ground and blinking. Her vision is only just starting to clear, but the little she can see doesn’t reveal much about her location. She can spot little drawing on the ground beneath her, doodles and colours all around. The floor she was on dropped off on both sides, strangely. Was she on some sort of…precipice?
Her eyes trail up to the evil girl in front of her, to her abdomen right in front her face. She has guns hanging off her small waist and blue tattoos trailing up her body. Cait can’t bring herself to look further up, to meet her eyes.
“Then what do you care about?” She asks, quietly. She knows her chances of survival get lower and lower by the second, and yet she can’t seem to calm her racing thoughts enough to save herself.
Her captor bends down slightly, making sure to meet Caitlyn’s blurry tired eyes. She tilts her head in that same way, in a way that would be endearing if she wasn’t fucking terrifying.
“That name you mentioned earlier,” Her already raspy voice sounds raw, like she’s struggling to speak these words but desperately wants to. “Vi. Tell me everything you know about her. What she looks like, where she came from, what’s she’s said…everything.” Her breathing has become almost as heavy as Caitlyn’s. “Tell me!” She repeats harshly.
“I- I,” Caitlyn stutters, taken aback by the wildness in her voice. “From Stillwater…she was a prisoner. I needed her to help me, with a-a job. She was leading me around in exchange for me setting her free. That’s all- I don’t-“ She pauses, breathing deep and recollecting herself. “Don’t hurt her. Please.”
Her captor looks deeply into her eyes, her shining blue ones looking like they could see into her soul. She straightens hastily and begins walking back to where she was before. Some kind of messy work desk, Caitlyn realizes, squinting.
“Pink hair, right?” The blue haired girl asks. “She has pink hair?”
“Y-yes.” Caitlyn answers, tugging at the ropes on her wrists.
She can see the girls shoulders moving up and down quickly, like she was panicking or sobbing. As long as she was distracted, Cait could work on the ropes and-
“Well!” The girl turns, a maniacal smile on her face, her mood seemingly changed in the blink of any eye. “Caitlyn Kiramman. My wonderful guest. I suppose it’s only right I introduce myself, considering you’ll be having an extended stay until I decide what to do with you. You can call me…J.”
J. Caitlyn stares at her, at the enigma of a girl who was crazy enough to kidnap her right off the street. She was clearly off the rails, the way she was smiling at her.
J hops back down the platform, back to where Caitlyn is tied to the chair with her arm behind her back. She flashes Cait one last bright, wicked expression before clicking a mask onto her face. A sweet, sickly scent floods her nose, and then she’s out cold again.
J’s face haunts the blackness behind her eyelids.