To hate, to need.
The weight of the coin pouch sat heavy in Vi’s palm, the cold metal biting against her fingers. Another deal, another payout. Silco’s influence stretched through the Undercity like roots through rot, and Vi was just another branch now—collecting money, making sure no one forgot who protected the Lanes.
It wasn’t the worst part of her new life. Not by a long shot.
She tucked the pouch into her belt, ready to leave when something made her stop.
The scent hit her first.
Coppery, raw.
Blood.
Her gaze snapped to a nearby alley, where the flickering glow of a streetlamp cast long, warped shadows. She moved closer, silent, careful, until the voices reached her.
“Didn’t your rats learn?” one of the enforcers sneered. He was tall, broad-shouldered, gripping a scrawny kid by the arm. The boy barely looked ten, his face streaked with dirt and something darker.
The second officer—a wiry bastard with a cruel smirk—prodded another child with his baton, forcing her to her knees. Blood smeared the corner of her mouth. “Maybe a few missing fingers will teach ‘em, huh?”
Vi’s breath came sharp through her nose.
She saw herself in those kids. She saw her brothers and Powder too. In their wide, terrified eyes.
And just like that, everything else—the money and Silco’s expectations—ceased to matter. He would understand. He always did.
She stepped forward. Her boots scuffed against the pavement, loud in the quiet.
The enforcers turned.
“Let ‘em go,” she said. Over the past year and a half, her voice had grown raspier, more mature.
The taller one narrowed his eyes. “And who the hell are—”
Vi hit him so hard his words died in his throat.
Her fist slammed into his jaw, sending him staggering against the alley wall. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he gasped for breath.
The second one lunged, baton raised. Vi ducked under the swing, drove a brutal hook into his ribs, then followed up with an uppercut that snapped his head back. He crumpled instantly.
But it wasn’t enough.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out reason, drowning out everything but the scent of blood. A heat surged through her veins, thick and suffocating, twisting something inside her.
The first enforcer groaned, trying to push himself up. Vi grabbed him by the collar and slammed his face into the dirt. Again. And again. Blood smeared against the stones. He twitched weakly, barely conscious.
She knew she should stop.
She couldn’t.
Her breathing was ragged, her mind fogged by something primal. It was the shimmer. She knew it was. It turned pain into fuel, rage into instinct. The part of her that once hesitated, that once questioned, was slipping away.
She curled her fist, ready to finish it—
A whimper.
She barely heard it. Barely felt the tiny hands clutching at her sleeve. One of the kids. He was trembling, eyes brimming with something worse than fear.
Terror.
Her stomach twisted.
Vi let go of the enforcer’s collar, watching his bloodied body slump to the ground. Her knuckles dripped red. Gods.
She stumbled back, her chest heaving. The shimmer still roared in her veins, but her hands—her own hands—shook.
She looked at the kids.
They weren’t looking at a hero. They weren’t looking at a protector.
They were looking at a monster.
Vi turned and ran.
Ran before she could see that fear in their eyes any longer. Before she could see what she was becoming.
A single knock at Silco’s office made his attention change from the reports in his desk to the little girl he knew was waiting outside his door.
As soon as he opened the door, the girl jumped into his arms, trembling and covered in blood. He knelt down to her height and held her close as she mumbled something into his ear.
“Are you hurt, Violet?” he asked as softly as he could, trying to soothe her, drawing small circles on her back. He gently lifted her face to examine the state of the now pre-teen.
She tried to explain everything to him, but the words kept getting stuck in her throat. All she could do was cry in his arms like the weak and scared girl she was.
But he didn’t get angry. He didn’t yell, nor did he try to hurt her for her mistakes. Instead, Silco sat her in his chair, disappearing from her vision only to return with a small medical kit and a cloth to clean the blood from her face and knuckles. He was patient and careful, not demanding an explanation—at least, not while making sure she was unharmed and calming her down.
She managed to explain to him what had happened—how she had lost control over her own body, how all she wanted to do was kill those pigs.
“You were very brave, dear,” Silco said as he finished bandaging her knuckles, something that, in the past, only Vander had been allowed to do for her. She didn’t say anything back—until later that day.
¨Can people still be brave if they are afraid? ¨ Her voice came out small, almost a whisper in the quiet of the room. The question was not about people, but herself. She could not shake the awful feeling of terror that cursed through her body as she almost killed those enforcers . She was now sitting in his lap, in the office, as he did her hair.
Vi had never cared much for how her hair looked—until now. The way Silco’s hands moved, steady and precise, as he pulled it back felt almost careful, almost... familiar.
He swept the longer black strands away from her face, letting a few pieces fall forward, framing her features the way his once had. The back was tied into a low, neat bun, restrained yet effortless, a quiet echo of the man before her.
He lifted the small mirror and placed it in front of her. For the first time in a long time Vi didn’t see just a fighter, a scarred survivor of chaos. She saw much more, a connection. A piece of him, shared with her—not as a demand, not as control, but as trust. A silent offering. A place besides him in the future that he was building, in their future.
¨I believe that is the only time we can be brave, Violet.¨ Silco said as he finished, smoothing a loose strand behind her ear.