💣EVERYBODY PANIC!💣
Vi.
The name ached in her brain, wrenching forth a sea of memories soaked in vile anger and tenderness.
Your sister is dead.
How many times had Silco uttered the words? Soothing every fear, wound and anxiety Vi had left along with her sister on the bridge that fateful night. But that wasn’t the truth, was it? Vi had never been dead. Just…gone, and Silco was fighting to keep it that way. It was an earth shattering revelation, hearing Silco’s hushed, urgent conversations about ‘dealing’ with family as though it were some ugly wound that needed lancing. What had really driven the sense of anger and betrayal deep was Silco’s pointed silence on the topic when Jinx returned for his daily medication. There had been a time where the routine was tender, where they’d shared secrets with one another and upheld a pact of honesty. But Vi’s name never left Silco’s lips. He was lying about her. He was trying to keep her a secret.
The knowledge made Jinx want to drive the needle deep into Silco’s eye. Over and over and over and over.
She did not.
The one shred of self restraint holding back the tidal wave of anger and hurt from challenging her so-called father figure was the knowledge of the person tied in the other room. An enforcer. An enforcer that for some reason, had been talking to Vi about something that Silco didn’t like. But if Silco didn’t like Vi, who was the real enemy? The thoughts writhed in an agitated, wounded mess, battling with each other in a fruitless effort to make sense of it all. If Silco found out that she knew about Vi, everything would speed up. No. She’d heard Silco’s side of things in the whispers he exchanged when he believed she wasn’t listening. What about their prisoner? What did she know?
It hadn’t been difficult to find where they’d been keeping her. Marcus and Silco had been spending the better part of the day formulating some convoluted plan of attack. As Jinx moved soundlessly past Silco’s office, she heard the two inside, hours deep into a debate on this shiny new enforcer’s life.
Jinx entered the holding room noiselessly from above, perching on the rough, dusty rafters to stare down at the woman tied to the chair. She didn’t look as old as the other enforcers Jinx had learned the faces of. A cold distance filtered into Jinx’s gaze while she watched the enforcer as though she were a spider Jinx hadn’t decided whether or not to stomp on.
“Ugh, I thought they’d never leave.” The snide commentary sounded from above as Jinx swung her legs over one of the wooden beams.
“Y’know, it’s not sounding good for you in the old Decisions Room. Guess you should’ve kept outta the way.”
There was a soft thump as Jinx hopped down from her vantage point, strolling absently towards the door to fix a makeshift barricade. She didn’t want any interruptions, after all. This chat was going to be important.
Jinx’s voice softened to something dangerously quiet. Tender, with the threat of teeth.
“...But you didn’t.”
Jinx hooked around to the enforcer, imposing an unsettling lack of distance between them as she leaned into the unsettling behaviour that so often prized results from people.
“Let’s talk about that.”
(( Starter for @gauntlets-shot ))
