“She’s dying.”
Cait looked up from the spread of paperwork on her desk -no one told her that seizing sold command of the city as a military dictator would involve so much paperwork- and found Loris standing in her doorway.
“I was under the impression that you’d handed in your badge and left the force.”
“She’s dying.”
Cait said nothing, scratching at one of the papers with a pen, signing off on something that most certainly did not require her attention.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
She looked away, but still he dared throw a broad shadow across the room, across her.
“Yes, you do.”
Cait let out a low, rasping sigh, a deep gurgle of frustration in the back of her throat. Her fingers dug into her desk and she itched to hold a gunstock in her hands. She was tired of these problems, she was tired of challenges she couldn’t just shoot, like Ambessa ramping up the pressure to lead a full-strength incursion into the Undercity to clear the Lanes. Rooting out the chem barons hadn’t been ending, it turned out, as they were almost a stabilizing influence and… and she had seen artwork of Jinx, the people of the Lanes seeing her as some kind of folk hero.
“She disobeyed my orders and abandoned our mission. Because of her, Jinx escaped. Trusting her was a mistake.”
“Not how she told it.”
Exasperated, Cait spun, ready to order him to leave lest he end up in Stillwater himself, but then she froze. Is that how she handled her problems now, by locking then up in dungeons without a trial?
How had it come to this? She finally had the authority she craved in her hands and yet it seemed every move she made worsened the very problems she’d dedicated her life to solving. She had almost died to show the city what the Enforcers could be, had pleaded with the Council to show the Undercity grace, to recognize what their people and their government had done to their neighbors… and now she was the Council, and how would she now receive those same pleas she’d once made?
Loris regards her coolly. The big man held his cards close to the vest, didn’t show emotion, but during their strike raids he’d taken on a protective role over all of them, the oldest member of the team. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a mentor, or even a friend, he was her subordinate, but she did respect him.
“She’s been making her way fighting in the pits. She fights all day and drinks all night, barely eats, barely sleeps. By the time I left I don’t think she’d eaten I three days and she lost two straight bouts to jobbers. It’ll kill her soon enough, the bottle or an opponent with something to prove or just some random thug with a knife. Is that what you want?”
Cait kept her face schooled, her posture prim. How dare he speak to her so frankly?
The trembling in her legs, she couldn’t fight, nor the impulse to worry her lip with her teeth. She suddenly felt five years old again, confessing some petty transgression to her mother. What would her mother think of what she’d done?
“What are you suggesting.”
“We bring her home. Go in, get her, get out through the vents. Quick and quiet, no uniforms. Just us.”
Cait hesitated. This could be a trap- some wannabe ruler of the Lanes might have put him up to this to lure her into the Undercity to be dealt with directly. No, she wasn’t that much of a fool.
Her jaw twisted. Good gods she’d have someone tasting her food next. What was she turning into?
“We need someone else to watch our backs. Maddie.”
Loris nodded. “Sooner we go, the better.”
“I’ll ready myself now.”
“You’ll need a disguise.”
“I have one.”
Cait hadn’t worn these clothes since the night she lay on her bed, sharing secrets with Vi, trading gentle touches. If she had to pinpoint a moment that she’d fallen in love with Violet it was the gentle way she took Cait’s hand and pressed it to her cheek, such adoration in her eyes.
What had she done?
The three of them stole into the Undercity the same way they had as a team- the ventilation shafts. Loris knew the way.
As they worked their way through the always and twisting warrens of Zaun, Cait could only think of the first time she’d come here- scared and trying to put on a brave face as she rushed after the brash, confident brick wall of a woman she’d followed here, desperately hoping that her sudden conviction that it was a terrible idea was wrong.
It actually turned out worse than a terrible idea. She’d almost been blown up, had been kidnapped, almost murdered by Silco’s men if not for Vi punching out an entire tower structure.
It had been the best idea she’d ever had.
“We’re here,” said Loris.
“It looks like they dump bodies here,” said Maddie, looking up at the tenement.
“Shut up,” Cait snapped, remembering something similar she’d said once, not knowing the reverent meaning the place held for Vi.
Loris looked up at one of the windows.
“We’d best hope she’s here. If she’s not we’re going to have trouble.”
“Lead the way.”
Cait kept her head down and her hood up -they’d all be killed if she were recognized- as the trio made their way up. Vi was living in a flop house. All around were Shimmer addicts. Cait felt her gut seize as she saw them trembling, pale and sweaty and rubbing at sores.
She had taken away the chemical that kept the worst of it at bay for them, but then what had she done? Just smashing the chem barons didn’t reverse the harm they’d caused. The addicted were still here.
When they reached Vi’s room, Loris knocked and the door swung open, unbarred.
At first, Cait thought this a mistake, or that Vi had moved on, but then she realized the broken form lying on the narrow, sweat-stained bed was Vi.
She’d lost weight, and was pale as a sheet except for the profusion of bruises and scrapes that covered her back and arms. There were bottles and broken glass strewn about everywhere and the wall mirror was shattered, as if from a punch.
Cait, forgetting herself, rushed to Vi’s side and knelt by the bed.
“Vi? Vi? Vi, wake up.”
Glassy eyed, Vi didn’t seem to see her.
Swallowing hard, Cait probed, quickly checking her over for injuries.
She had a broken rib at the very least. Fuck!
“Vi?”
“Cupcake?” Vi murmured. “Are you real?”
“Cupcake?” Maddie broke in. “Is she hungry?”
“Shut up,” Cait hissed. “We have to go, we’ve been here too long already.”
“Let’s get her to the vents and back topside,” said Loris.
“Help me carry her,” said Cait.
“I’ve got her,” the big man said.
Something in Cait crumbled when she saw how easily he lifted Vi from the bed. Cait pulled her hood low and they swaddled Vi in what they could find, scrambling to avoid notice. Cait’s heart pounded with every step and she was sure they’d be spotted and mobbed and Zaun would be parading the body of the Commander of Piltover around the streets by morning.
Somehow, they made it. As the approached the bridge crossing, Cait her the sounds of rifles racking and threw back her hood.
“Get out of my way,” she snarled.
Her Enforcers obliged.
“Where are we taking her?” said Loris.
“Home.”
As soon as she was able, she arranged for transport and Loris lowered Vi onto a stretcher. It might have been better to conduct her to a hospital, but Cait would have none of that.
She took Vi home, had her men lay Vi in her bed, then harshly ordered them out.
“Thank you,” she said to Loris and Maddie.
The former nodded curtly and left. Maddie lingered for a moment, her eyes searching the room before she slipped out as Cait asked her to find her father.
Tobias appeared. Maddie did not join him, for which she was grateful.
Cait said nothing and her father kept his own council just as readily. They hadn’t been speaking much, the heartfelt talks and reminisces drying up as Cait threw herself into her work. She could sense her father’s distaste but above all else, he was a doctor. Cait waited as he made his examination.
Finally he said, “her torso will need binding for the broken rib, and those cuts will be needing treatment. She’s been drinking.”
Cait nodded.
“The withdrawal will be terrible for her.”
Cait nodded vigorously, biting her lip as she looked down at Vi.
“I’ll see to bringing in some nurses to help me. Stay back, and let us work.”
Her father called upon his own staff from the hospital and soon Vi was surrounded.
With all her authority, Cait could do nothing but watch as Vi’s ribs were bandaged for support. She didn’t wake through any of it, even as her body jerked while her wounds were cleaned and Cait herself unwound her wraps.
Her father ran a line into Vi’s arm and hung a bottle of fluids.
“I’ve started her on normal saline and a nutritional supplement, antibiotics to be administered every twelve hours on the hour.”
“Thank you.”
“I did it for you.”
Cait was not prepared to be alone with Vi but it happened anyway. She sat by the bedside and watched Vi breathe, her chest rising and falling steadily. She would call names in her sleep: Mom. Vander. Powder.
Cait.
Cait. Cait. Cait.
Vi called her name like a prayer, voice that of a lonely searcher calling out in the dark.
“I’m here,” Cait whispered, “I’m here, Vi. Just open your eyes.”
Hours stretched into a day, two. Cait was slumped in her chair when it happened, using her cape as a blanket.
“Cait?”
Her voice sounded different, somehow more coherent. It took Cait a stunned moment to realize that Vi was looking at her.
“Where am I?”
“I brought you home.”
Vi grunted as she started to sit up. Cait jolted to her feet and pressed her back down, gently.
“You’ve a broken rib, and the withdrawal.”
Vi fell back into the pillows.
“You should have left me where you found me, Cupcake.”
“I never should have left you at all.”