Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Cait. Are you sure about this?”

Caitlyn touches Vi’s face, caressing her alpha’s cheek and hoping to soothe away the fear and uncertainty in those beautiful gray eyes. “I’m sure,” she says. “I want you, Vi. For the rest of our lives, I want you to be mine. Mine and mine only. My mate.” She pauses then, and she frowns. “Do you want me?”

“More than anything,” Vi rushes to say, breathless and scared. “I just— if we do this, you can’t take this back. Mating bites are forever, Cait. You’d be stuck with me, and I’m—”

“Wonderful,” Caitlyn finishes for Vi, knowing her alpha is going to say anything but.

A nobody, Vi would have said. A failure who couldn’t protect her family. The sister of her mother’s murderer.

Weak.

Pathetic.

Unworthy.

An alpha no omega would ever want to mate.

“You are strong,” she tells Vi, punctuating the statement by kissing the scar on her alpha’s brow. “You are loyal.” Another kiss, this time on cheek, where Vi’s tattoo is. “You are kind.” Another kiss, on the lips, soft and chaste. “And you are everything I want,” she says with one last kiss, long and drawn out, and it makes Vi growl in need.

Vi kisses down her neck and stops exactly where Caitlyn wants her. Where her scent is strongest. Where a mate mark should be. Will be. Caitlyn clutches the back of Vi’s neck, seeking out the same spot.

“I’m being an idiot, aren’t I?” Vi asks.

“Yes,” Caitlyn says with a laugh, and, for once, since she lost her mother, her chest doesn’t feel tight and heavy. It feels light and full of love. “But it’s fine, as long as you’re my idiot.”

Vi laughs, and Caitlyn knows she’ll never tire of hearing that sound. “Okay,” Vi says, nuzzling her neck before kissing where the mating bite will go. “Okay,” Vi says again, and Caitlyn smiles and takes her alpha - her alpha - to bed.

A month and a half later, Vi pleads with her to never change.

The same day, Caitlyn breaks that promise.

It’s been three months since. Three months since she last saw Vi. Held her. Kissed her. Made love to her. Three months since she struck Vi and left her in the bowels of the undercity, not once looking back.

Three months since Vi betrayed her, stopped her yet again from taking the shot. She should have known. She should have known better. Vi will never change. Vi will always protect Jinx, no matter what she says. Vi will always believe in her sister, even when there isn’t a trace of her left.

What a weak, pathetic alpha, after all.

Caitlyn should have known better than to mate an alpha like that.

She touches the mate mark on her neck. It’s already healed, even when the blood is still wet on fingertips. She can’t scratch it out, no matter how hard she tries, and how she’s tried - again and again and again - for the past three months.

She wonders, briefly, if Vi has been doing the same.

She sits up. The bed feels bigger and bigger as time passes - feels more and more empty - without Vi, and sleep is harder to come by. She stands, blood still flowing freely from neck, and she walks to the closet. She digs deep, goes through pile after pile of clothes, until she finally finds what she’s looking for.

Vi’s red jacket. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it away. She should have, but she couldn’t. It’s the last piece of Vi she has left.

At least, it used to be.

Vi’s scent on the jacket has faded long ago, but still, Caitlyn tries. Desperately, she tries. She nuzzles it, closing her eyes and imagining all the times she did it with Vi wearing the jacket. She breathes in, and she barely bites back a sob.

Wrong. It smells wrong. It’s not Vi.

It’s not Vi.

She takes the jacket back to bed, anyway, hoping it’ll help her sleep, like before.

It doesn’t.

Caitlyn lasts one more week until she can’t take it anymore.

She sneaks into Zaun at night, and then into the room Vi’s been living in for gods know how long. She’s known. She’s always known where it is, and so many times she’s had to talk herself out of it, out of what she’s doing now.

She wishes she could go to the pit, but it’s too risky. So she sits, and she waits, on the pile of boxes Vi’s been using for a bed.

It’s filthy, this room that reeks of alcohol and rage. This small, small space that’s been the closest thing to Vi’s home since they parted ways. Since she left Vi behind. The mirror is broken. The punching bag is a few good punches away from being torn off its chains. The walls have holes the shape of Vi’s fists.

Caitlyn picks up a small, dirty pillow. It smells like blood, sweat, and alpha. Her alpha.

Vi. Her Vi.

This is how Vi finds her, her nose pressed into the pillow, and her breathing in the smell of it like she needs it more than air.

But it doesn’t compare to the real thing.

Vi is standing at the door and staying there, but Caitlyn catches her mate’s scent in an instant. Mine, her instincts declare. Mate. Caitlyn has to clutch at the edges of the boxes to stop herself from pouncing on Vi.

She notices Vi’s hair, black and gloomy, and immediately she yearns for the natural bright red color. Vi’s eyes, which often softened when looking at her, do just that, and Caitlyn almost turns away.

Vi should hate her. Should bare her fangs and snarl at her. Should yell at her, call her a monster. It’s what she deserves, the least of it.

Instead, Vi steps aside and leaves the door open, letting her walk away, if she wants to.

Like she’s done before.

It would be the right thing to do. She shouldn’t have come here.

Caitlyn stands and approaches Vi. Her alpha - her mate - remains silent, but there’s no need for words when Vi’s scent and body say everything. Vi is her mate, and reacts to the smell of her arousal and desperation in kind. But Vi makes no move to indulge the urges - the instincts, their instincts - and continues to wait for her to leave.

Caitlyn stops when there’s barely any space between them. She looks at Vi’s mate mark, on display for all to see, unlike hers, which is hidden under the collar of her shirt. Not a scratch on it, unlike hers, now ugly with scars from too many futile attempts to erase something permanent.

There’s no anger in Vi’s eyes when she sees this. No fight, only hurt.

Caitlyn knows she has to leave now while she can. Before it’s too late.

Before she hurts Vi even more.

She reaches for the door, but instead of walking out, she closes it. She then reaches for Vi, and though her mate tenses, she doesn’t step away. Caitlyn touches the exposed muscles of her mate’s abs and pauses there. Her arousal demands that she slide her hand lower, to touch the proof that Vi needs her just as badly.

But her heart. Oh, her heart. It yearns for her to move her hand up, to have her palm rest over Vi’s chest so she could feel her mate’s beating heart. It yearns for a kiss, soft and sweet, like Vi.

I miss you, she wants to tell Vi.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

Vi grabs her wrist, and Caitlyn is ready for her mate to push her away, to reject her and tell her to go back to her gilded palace. To hurt her, maybe, like she deserves.

But instead Vi carries her, gently and - dare say - lovingly, like she doesn’t deserve.

Vi doesn’t say a single word throughout, touching her like not a day has passed between them. And gently - so gently - so much that it almost feels like making love.

Almost.

Vi doesn’t kiss her. Doesn’t look her in the eyes. Doesn’t bury her nose in her neck or bite her mate mark.

Caitlyn almost begs for it, but she stops herself. The silence is better. Easier, she tells herself. For whom, she’s not certain, only that she doesn’t want Vi to stop until they’re both drunk on pleasure and each other.

Maybe. Maybe then, she can say something.

Maybe then she can fix this.

Caitlyn wakes up to Vi pulling up her pants with some obvious difficulty. Her alpha has neglected her own needs and only tended to hers.

She reaches for Vi, desperate to touch her mate. Desperate to make her feel wanted. Loved, just as Vi made her feel, over and over, moments ago.

But this time, Vi steps away, and Caitlyn hears her speak for the first time in three months.

“When do you need this again?”

It’s not the question Vi really wants to ask, Caitlyn can tell. There’s so many questions in Vi’s eyes alone, but not the rage and hate Caitlyn expects to see, wishes to see instead. She’ll gladly take the fire of Vi’s fury over this. Vi may be winning all the fights in the pit, but she’s already lost the most important one, and all that’s left is the hollow in her gray eyes.

It hurts so much to see.

“Vi, no—” she tries to say, reaching for her mate again, and again, Vi denies her. “It’s not like that. I didn’t just come here to…” she pauses, and she feels disgusted with herself when she realizes it. “To use you. I didn’t, I—”

“It’s fine,” Vi says, and puts on her jacket, black like her hair. Black like the seemingly bottomless pit Caitlyn has left her in, and where she’d rather stay than in her arms. “What else am I good for?” Vi asks.

Before she could answer, Vi walks to the door and opens it. She doesn’t look at her. She doesn’t speak again. She just waits and waits for her to leave.

And Caitlyn, fearing she’ll do something irreparable - fearing she'll break what little is left of her mate - does just that.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn wakes up to Vi pulling up her pants with some obvious difficulty. She reaches out, touching her mate’s hip with the tips of her fingers. Vi tenses like prey caught in a snare, but doesn’t attempt to escape.

“Vi. Come here,” she whispers, she pleads with her mate. “Please.”

Come to bed, she wants to beg.

Let me touch you. Please.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Vi growls - though it’s more a whimper than a threat - and moves out of reach. Caitlyn doesn’t push her luck. Three months of this, of whatever it is she and Vi have been doing, and she’s no closer to bridging the growing, gnawing chasm between her and her mate.

She watches, longingly, when Vi fastens her pants closed. Something primal and omega in her wants to cry out in protest, demanding that she attend to her mate’s needs. Vi satisfies her - thoroughly and repeatedly - whenever they’re together, but it’s not enough. Not anymore. She needs to touch Vi, to drag her fingers down her mate’s longer hair, to feel her mate’s broader shoulders. To have Vi inside her and keep her there, holding her and kissing her while she comes undone.

She needs to be Vi’s mate. To make love to her.

To talk to her.

There’s so many things Caitlyn wants to say. About them. About Jinx. She wants to tell Vi how scared she is, of Ambessa’s true intentions for Piltover, of how trapped she feels. She wants to tell Vi how scared she is of what she’s becoming, and how she wants - desperately wants - to ask Vi to help her break free.

But she’s asked too much from Vi already. Taken too much.

Vi has nothing left to give. Not to Powder. Not to Jinx. And certainly not to her.

She watches Vi put her jacket on, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from asking her mate to leave it with her. She’ll have to make do with the pillows and sheets, at least until she has to wash them. No one can know that Vi has been here, in her room and - far too briefly - in her arms.

She catches Vi looking at her. Soft. Vi’s gray eyes still soften when she looks at her, and it breaks her heart more every time she sees it.

Stay, she almost begs her mate.

Vi looks away and leaves. All Caitlyn can do is hope to see her again the next night she leaves her windows open.

“You impress me, child.”

Caitlyn turns away from the board, specifically at the poster of Jinx pinned on it, and she faces Ambessa. “Not with my progress, surely,” she responds, and gestures at the board, “or lack, thereof.”

Ambessa smirks, and it’s unsettling. “I speak of your resolve,” the Noxian says, tapping the side of her own neck.

Her mate mark. Ambessa is talking about her mate mark.

“Six months,” Ambessa goes on, approaching her now, like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Six long, long months without that alpha mate of yours, and here you are, still sharp. Still focused. A lesser omega would have crumbled under the wails of her instincts and crawled to her mate on her hands and knees.”

Does Ambessa know? Is Vi’s scent still on her?

Impossible. Ambessa is a beta. She can’t sense Vi’s scent.

“You know this for a fact?” she asks Ambessa. She looks the Noxian in the eyes. She can’t show hesitation, not even the smallest of openings.

Again, Ambessa smirks. “Mated alphas and omegas are slaves to the bond. It is your nature. Noxus has strict mating laws for this very reason. Only the most worthy alphas and omegas are allowed the privilege, and only once they’ve proven themselves capable of managing the cumbersome complications that come with mating. A shame, really, that Piltover doesn’t provide proper education for alphas and omegas. Perhaps, then, you would have known better than to take such a weak alpha for a mate, and one from Zaun, at that.”

Caitlyn barely stops herself from baring her fangs, but she doesn’t stop her words. “Vi is not weak,” she says, almost growling.

“No,” Ambessa agrees, much too quickly for Caitlyn’s liking. “I’ve seen her fight. She’s quite the warrior. It’s a pity, how things turned out between you. We’d be stronger with her at her side. You’d be stronger with her at your side.”

“Vi has made her choice,” Caitlyn says, fighting to keep her voice from breaking, “as I have made mine.”

Ambessa nods, but doesn’t seem convinced.

Caitlyn keeps her windows closed for a month.

Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Ambessa doesn’t bring up Vi again.

When she feels it’s safe enough to open the windows again, Vi doesn’t show.

Loris doesn’t send a report on Vi's whereabouts. Odd. The man isn’t fond of her and has made no secret of it, but he’s always kept her updated on Vi. Until now.

His last reports have gotten increasingly concerning. Vi’s drinking has gotten worse. Alphas and omegas can’t get drunk, not on regular alcohol. They need the sort with a hint of shimmer blended in, but Vi, according to Loris, has been drinking more shimmer than alcohol.

Because of her. Caitlyn knows this is because of her.

Shimmer, if consumed in large enough doses, makes alphas and omegas aggressive, violent. Add even more shimmer, and there’s a high risk of going feral.

An alpha like Vi going feral, all raw power and nothing left to lose? The thought is terrifying. Chilling.

Caitlyn hopes Loris is alright. That, for his own safety, he knows to keep his distance from Vi, if it ever comes to that.

If it has come to that.

Caitlyn tries to find out over the next few days, but there’s too many incidents of feral Zaunites inciting fights at the checkpoints or ambushing patrols. Discreetly, she goes through each report. She searches among the alpha files, few of which have pictures attached to them, so she has to read through physical descriptions.

But she can’t find Vi in a sea of blue and obscurity.

The following afternoon, Rictus interrupts her meeting with Ambessa, bruised, beaten, and a noticeable limp in his step.

He tells her about the Zaunite rally at Vander’s statue.

He tells her that Jinx didn’t show up, but Vi did. Feral, like Caitlyn’s been fearing, and has torn through Noxians.

He tells her about an explosion, and that Vi was right in the middle of it.

“Jinx!”

Sevika’s voice sounds far away, like an echo. It’s smothered by smells that she knows too well.

Smoke. Crystal. Blood.

And a scent under all of that. Familiar, like an old wound that keeps opening, that she can’t help but pick at, every now and then.

Family. Sister.

Vi.

Sevika comes stumbling in, Vi in her arms. Vi not breathing. In one piece, but barely.

They lay Vi on the floor. Jinx scrambles through her things, throwing away what she can’t use. She’s looking for something, anything. They’ll need to restrain Vi.

“What happened to her? Tell me!”

Chains. The best she could find, considering, and she can quickly weld them to the floor.

“The Noxians attacked us at the rally. Your sister appeared out of nowhere when they tried to arrest everyone. High as fuck on shimmer. Feral.”

She knows Vi’s drinking has gotten worse, but not this bad. Not this quickly.

“Then some Noxian with a spear,” Sevika goes on, “he flung it at a gauntlet, hit the gemstone, and it–”

“Blew up.”

“Yeah.”

Jinx moves quickly, using the shimmer in her blood. She splits the chains and welds them in place: around Vi’s head, her shoulders, her hands, her torso, her legs, and her feet. Her hands are covered with Vi’s blood by the time she’s done. Blood that continues to pool on the floor.

Vi is cold, and getting colder.

She tries not to think about it.

“What do we do? She’s not breathing, hasn’t been since the explosion. She’s–”

“No, she’s not. She won’t! Shut up. Shut up!”

Jinx gets a syringe and a vial of shimmer, shimmer she took from Singed’s lab after she woke up on his table in what feels like a lifetime ago. The same kind of shimmer now running through her veins.

“You sure about this?” Sevika asks.

About saving Vi’s life?

About making Vi just like her?

Or someone, something worse?

Jinx touches Vi’s face and brushes back her hair. Vi’s scent is tainted with Caitlyn's, but it’s still Vi. It’s still Vi. It will always be Vi.

She fills the syringe to the brim with shimmer.

It’s not until the fifth shot of shimmer before Vi is put back together and finally starts breathing again.

It takes two more before she opens her eyes.

“Hey, Vi. It’s me. It’s me,” she tells Vi, smiling when wide, confused gray eyes turn to her. “I know it hurts. I know. And it’s gonna hurt a lot more soon, but you’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Powder? What–” is all Vi manages to say when the pain kicks in.

Vi breaks the chains after two more shots, and Jinx and Sevika have to hold Vi down until she stops thrashing and screaming.

It takes hours.

Hours of listening to Vi crying out for Caitlyn, of Vi calling herself a weak, pathetic alpha, an unworthy mate.

Of Vi saying I’m sorry. It’s my fault. All my fault.

Of Vi saying Powder, over and over and over. Powder. Powder.

Powder.

When Vi finally quiets down, and finally falls asleep, Jinx stays with her.

“Powder?”

Jinx wakes up. Vi is frowning at her.

Vi’s eyes are pink. Like shimmer. Like hers.

And then there's the blue. Like hextech. Little glowing cracks all over her body, and a patch of it on her chest, where her heart is.

“Powder, what happened? What’s going on?” Vi asks, and before she can answer, Vi asks more questions that leave her speechless. “Where’s Mylo, Claggor? Where’s Dad?”

“Well?”

Jinx closes the door to Silco’s office. Sevika is on her usual seat, so she takes hers, on Silco’s desk. “Vi’s still eating,” she says, and it makes sense. Being almost blown up always gets her appetite going. It must be the same for Vi now. She figures it’s a mix of shimmer and alpha and omega healing that makes them ravenous after surviving something they shouldn't.

“She saved all those people at the rally,” Sevika says. “If she hadn’t jumped in, they’d be locked up in Stillwater by now, and left to rot in there by that omega of hers. They probably would have gotten me, too.”

“Thought you said she was feral.”

“She was.”

“You people should really set the bar a little higher for your heroes. Just a smidge. The psycho who put holes in your boss and the bluebelly traitor alpha pet of the queen of pigs herself? Really? Come on. Have some standards. I’m begging you.”

“One sister who stood up to the council and another who just fought for us despite being mated to the enemy. Your fathers would be proud of you. Both of you.”

She laughs. “You’re getting really good at spinning all this bullshit, you know that? I almost believed you! Ever consider a career in politics? You’d fit right in.”

Sevika sighs and lights a cigar. Jinx knows she's about to change the subject.

“What does Vi remember?”

She stares at Silco’s empty chair. “Nothing before the heist we pulled topside, all those years ago,” she says. “Vi doesn’t remember getting the tip from Ekko. Doesn’t remember telling Claggor to scout the place, or telling Mylo to plan an escape route. Doesn’t remember telling me I was ready to do the job with them. The last thing she remembers is treating us to Jericho’s. It was my birthday.”

“Months before it all went to shit, then. Explains why she’s so nice to me,” Sevika says, and Jinx snorts in agreement.

“Yeah. Didn’t think I’d ever see her not use her fist to say hello to you.”

Sevika rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “So, did you know this was going to happen?”

She shakes her head. “No. I didn’t even think she was going to make it. The shimmer fucks with your head. Really, really fucks with your head, but it didn’t do that to me.” She closes her eyes and sees it, Caitlyn laughing at her. Caitlyn taking Vi away. Vi walking away and leaving her behind. “I remember everything,” she says, “and then some.”

"Could be the hextech?" Sevika guesses. "I got hit by a blast of it. Lost my arm, but not my memories. Vi, though? She was right in the center of it."

She nods. "Could be."

"Whatever caused it," Sevika pauses and takes a drag, “looks like things really are going your way.”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, and Sevika blows out the smoke.

“Because it seems to me like you’ve got your sister back.”

Chapter Text

Vander’s statue, or what’s left of it, is surrounded by enforcers and Noxians alike when Caitlyn makes it to the scene. There’s a ring of hextech blue on the ground, and it stretches wide, spanning nearly the whole width of the area.

There’s blood on the ground. A lot of it.

Vi’s.

Her mate mark stings, suddenly, and Caitlyn almost fails to keep from flinching. She clenches her hand, stopping herself from touching her mate mark. She knows, instinctively, that nothing would soothe the pain that’s now gripping at her heart.

Pain she can’t show, especially not under Ambessa’s ever watchful eyes.

Off to the side, Steb is tending to the wounded Noxians who survived the blast. Caitlyn walks past them, Ambessa now at her heels. Loris is a ways away, speaking with Maddie.  The alpha growls when they approach, and whether it’s because Ambessa is with her, Caitlyn doesn’t know, nor does she care.

“Loris.”

He scoffs. He sneers.

He’s injured: a black eye and a broken leg, among many bruises and scrapes. “Commander,” he says with disgust, exactly the sort she wishes she got from Vi.

“Again,” Ambessa speaks up before she could, “and with the respect Commander Kiramman is due.”

“I would ask the same of you, General,” Caitlyn says, and Ambessa turns to her in challenge. “I couldn’t care less how Loris chooses to address me, as long as he answers my questions.”

Ambessa holds her gaze a moment longer, and when she doesn’t turn away, the woman smiles. “Very well, Commander. Do proceed.”

“Loris. Were you here when it happened?” she asks.

He shakes his head.

“Did you know Vi was going to be here?” she presses on, and Loris’ upper lip curls when she speaks her mate’s name.

He wants to protect Vi. From her.

“Did you know?” she nearly growls, tempted to bare her fangs at him.

Loris glares at Ambessa, and then at her. “I tried to stop her.”

“Your leg,” she says, hiding the concern in her voice. “Vi’s doing?”

The look he gives her answers her question.

“Do you know–” she stops. Her mate mark hurts, worse than before. She tries again. “Where is Vi now? Is she…” she trails off. “Is she…”

Breathe. It’s hard to breathe.

“Commander,” Maddie speaks up. There’s a pitying expression on her face. “I’ve spoken with the Noxian soldiers. They said when the smoke cleared, there was nothing left.”

Jinx comes down from Silco’s office. She stops midway when she hears what’s playing on the jukebox.

“There's a girl in town and word's gone around she's just fine
So I don't worry my head 'cause I know her heart is tied to mine
The life that we live and the love that I give to her
Each day it grows more and more I'm sure, it shows
Well”

She hasn’t listened to that song since Vander played it, the same night he died.

Vi, fresh from a bath, hair clean and back to red, is leaning on the jukebox.

Humming.

Singing.

Smiling.

“Hey, Pow,” Vi says, and the way she says it, the way her face lights up, it makes Jinx feel like she’s stepped into the past, into happy memories she’s thought long buried and forgotten.

She lets Vi draw her further into it. Lets Vi put an arm around her and pull her into a hug.

“Ooh, like Sunday I'll pray our love will always stay pure
Ooh, while the world turns around, he holds me down for sure”

“Thanks for fixing the box.” Vi is swaying to the music now. “I love this song. Mom’s favorite. And Vander’s.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, and she starts to sway with Vi. “I remember.”

What she doesn’t remember is the sound of Vi’s singing voice. What she doesn’t remember is how Vi used to smile and laugh with only half the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“You wanted to talk about something?” Vi asks.

“Yeah. But it can wait,” she says, tucking her head under Vi’s chin. She breathes in the scent of her sister, of family and safety and home. “I love this song, too.”

Vi laughs, soft and affectionate. “You got it, Pow.”

She smiles and closes her eyes when Vi starts to purr, loud, deep, and comforting, just like she used to when she promised to scare all the monsters away.

“Our love, is a bubblin' fountain
Our love, that flows into a sea
Our love, deeper than any ocean
Our love, for eternity”

Caitlyn wakes up gasping and clutching desperately at her mate mark.

It hurts. It hurts.

Why does it hurt so much?

Vi. Where is Vi?

Where is her mate?

“Caitlyn.”

Someone is touching her shoulders, pleading with her.

Her father.

She looks around. She’s in her room, still in uniform. Her father is by her side, looking haggard. Looking too much like he did when she - they - lost her mother.

“Oh, thank goodness,” her father says in a rush, and he hugs her. “I was so worried about you, Caitlyn. How do you feel? Are you in pain?”

She is. Her mate mark hurts.

Her body hurts. A deep, burrowing hurt that makes her limbs feel heavy and her muscles ache. A hurt she’s learned to live with since she left Vi, that she’s learned to keep a secret from everyone. No one knows. Not Ambessa, nor her father.

She’s afforded respites during the sparse, fleeting moments she’s had with Vi, the few precious seconds of happiness she feels before she remembers that her own mate recoils at her touch.

Other than that - other than Vi - nothing works to ease the pain.

“I’m fine, Father,” she tells her father. “What happened? How did I end up here?”

He frowns. “You don’t remember,” he says, and then he shakes his head. “Of course. General Medarda said this would be the case. Caitlyn, you went feral and the general had to incapacitate you. She and her soldiers then brought you here, and I gave you a sedative once the episode had passed.”

Feral? Her?

Impossible. Without shimmer, it happens so rarely.

“General Medarda assured me it’s normal to have no recollection of a feral episode,” her father goes on. “Fortunately, there were no civilians about when it happened. Even more fortunately, the general’s quick thinking kept Officer Nolan safe.”

Maddie? She attacked Maddie?

What for?

“I’ve spoken with the Noxian soldiers. They said when the smoke cleared, there was nothing left.”

Caitlyn gasps when the memory comes up, rushing through the fog in her mind and the dull drone of her father’s voice.

“Nothing left.”

Vi.

Her alpha.

Her mate.

Her love.

Gone?

“No!” she roars, and she tries to get up, but her father holds her down. “Let me go. Let me go! I have to find Vi. I have to find her. I need to!”

“Caitlyn, listen to me–”

She snarls and bares her fangs, a final warning to her father. She’s an omega in her prime and her father has become thin and frail. She can toss him aside with ease, and she will, if he doesn’t back off.

“She’s dead, Caitlyn! Vi is dead!”

“Stop saying that. Stop saying that!” She’s swinging blindly before she realizes it, and when she blinks, her father is on the floor, his nose bleeding. It’s a sobering sight. She rushes to him and helps him stand. “Father–”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” he interrupts, and then tells her, “just stay here, take a breath, and try to calm down. We’ll talk after I see to this.”

She nods and sits on the bed. Her father gives her one last disapproving, disappointed look before leaving. The door closes behind him, and then there’s just her and unsettling silence. She growls. She curses and pulls at her hair.

What has she done?

She hurt her father. Her own father.

But he’s wrong, something primal in her growls. He’s wrong.

Vi isn’t gone. She can’t be.

Her mate can’t be gone.

She paces around her room. It distracts from the pain that seeps deep in her bones, but not from the pain in her mate mark. It’s a jagged sting and a searing heat at the same time, just under the mark and the scars from the scratches that almost covered it.

Try to calm down, her father has said.

How could she, when her mate is out there, wounded and alone? Because that has to be why her mate mark is hurting. Vi is alive and needs her. That’s what it means. It couldn’t be anything else. It couldn’t be.

Without waiting for her father to return, she leaves.

She has to find her mate.

Jinx keeps her head down as she walks through the Lanes. Her hair, she doesn’t really need to hide, what with so many twits having colored theirs the same shade of blue, but her eyes? Those, she needs to hide.

Not a lot of people going around with shimmer-colored eyes, after all.

Just her.

Well, used to be just her.

Vi now, too.

“You have to talk to her,” Sevika tells her. “You can’t put this off forever. Sooner or later, she’ll stop being patient and start asking questions, and you and I both know how patient your sister isn’t.”

“I need a minute,” she mumbles, knowing it’ll annoy Sevika, and it does.

“You’ve had about a day’s worth of minutes by now. What’s the problem, anyway? Just tell her–”

“Tell her what?” she snaps. “Tell her that I’m the reason our brothers and father are dead? Tell her that I blew up the council and killed her mate’s mom? Yeah, that’ll go over really well, Lefty. I’m sure she’ll give me a big hug and will want to stick around after that. Oh, and give you a big punch in the face, but it sounds like you’re asking for one.”

“So make her stick around.”

“How, by lying to her? You remember what lying to me did to Silco, don’t you? Lies on top of lies on top lies, so many I couldn’t tell what’s what, and now he’s dead.”

Sevika growls, but doesn’t take the bait. “It’s not a lie to tell her that her mate abandoned her after she couldn’t bring herself to kill her own sister.”

She has no comeback for that. Vi did do that. After everything - after the big speech about how they’re no longer sisters, how she’s done blaming herself, how Powder is gone and Jinx is nothing but a monster - after being one punch away from getting rid of her for good, Vi just couldn’t do it.

That softie.

That big, dumb softie with that big, dumb heart of hers.

“It’s not a lie to tell her that her mate is sending enforcers and Noxians into our streets and into our homes to hunt you down.”

Sevika goes on.

“Look, I know you didn’t ask for it, and you sure as hell didn’t want it, but you’re the reason people aren’t taking any shit from Topside. They’re not giving you up, no matter how much money the council is willing to throw at them. They’re fighting back because of you.”

And on and on.

“As for Vi, it’s going to take time and work before people forgive her for putting on a badge and turning on us, but what she did at the rally, risking her life like that? People are already talking, and soon, they’re going to remember who she is. Vander’s daughter. One of us.”

And on and on and on.

“If you’d just get your head out of ass, you’ll see that you have the opportunity to create the Zaun your father’s always dreamed of, and with your sister on our side, we’ll not only have a fighting chance, we could damn well win.”

Wow. Sevika really doesn’t know when to shut up these days.

Besides, there’s one thing Sevika isn’t thinking of.

The mate mark. Turns out, it’s the one thing shimmer can’t fix.

There’s no getting rid of it. There’s no getting rid of Caitlyn.

Vi isn’t going to pick her over her own mate. Not this time. Not when she doesn’t feel guilty anymore. Not when she isn’t blaming herself for every single thing that went wrong.

Not if she tells Vi the truth. All of it, and not just the ones she wants Vi to hear.

So don’t tell her. Easy. What she’ll never know won’t hurt you.

“I’m not lying to her,” she whispers.

Why not? She’d be better off. She doesn’t need to know that the whole family is dead because of you. Because you just wouldn’t listen. Because you’re such a fucking jinx.

“Shut up.”

She doesn’t need to know that her mate lost her fucking mind because of you. You remember what it’s like to lose your mom, don’t you? Or your dad? All three of them? The last two, because of you.

“Shut up.”

Why tell her? Why tell her her precious Powder doesn’t exist anymore?

And why would she even love you, after that? Love you more than her own mate?

Why risk losing her again, when you just got her back?

“Shut up!”

Jinx looks around. She’s breathing hard. Shaking.

The alley is empty. No one heard her.

She’s halfway up a short flight of stairs. She realizes where she is now, the small, sad little room Vi’s been living in since her mate threw her away.

This isn’t the first time Jinx has been here. She’s hauled Vi up these stairs and into bed more times than she could count. Vi, barely conscious from too much fighting, on not enough food and sleep, and - the last few times - stinking of shimmer, Caitlyn, and utter misery, has seen her, but always thought she isn’t real.

Seeing things. Seeing people.

They really are sisters.

Why am I here, Jinx wonders, and then remembers: she’s supposed to check if Vi has more clothes stuffed somewhere in that dingy little room. That’s what she told Vi, anyway, to get away from having to talk to her.

And Vi, the sweet, trusting, and lovable idiot, just smiled and believed her.

She sighs. Might as well actually do it, since she’s here.

She almost touches the doorknob when she catches a scent from the other side of the door.

Family.

Sister.

And it’s not Vi.

Impulsive. Reckless. Desperate.

Caitlyn knows she’s all these things when she decided to come back here. Bad enough she’s already done it once, when she first sought Vi out, but here she is again.

It’s the dead of night. No one has seen her, not while she was out in the streets and not when she made her way in here. Even then, she’s made sure to wear appropriate clothing and hide her face.

She should be proud of herself that she had the presence of mind - that she still has a mind left at all - to take all those precautions, but her omega instincts are howling at her, howling so, so loud, to do one thing and one thing only. 

Find Vi. Find her mate.

But Vi’s not here, and hasn’t been here for a while. Her mate’s scent is faint, and only leads her back to Vander’s statue.

She waits. She’s been waiting. For hours, she’s been waiting.

It feels like days.

Caitlyn whines and buries her face in the rumpled Kiramman banner that she found on the bed. Her mate’s scent is strongest on it, and it eases the pain, if only a little. Has Vi been using the banner as a blanket? Her heart breaks, thinking about it, and she’s left yearning and weeping for her mate.

She had a chance. Their last night together, she had a chance. To talk to Vi.

To fix this. To fix them.

But she was scared - she’s still scared - to make another mistake. To make it worse.

She couldn’t trust herself not to, after everything she’s already done.

A noise from the other side of the door. Footsteps?

Vi?

Caitlyn rushes to the door and opens it, but no one’s there.

She turns around, and catches the scent too late. Sees the trail of pink too late.

Omega.

And shimmer.

Jinx.

She only has time to reach for her sidearm before Jinx pulls the trigger.

Jinx watches.

Caitlyn is on the ground. Alive. Immobile, but still conscious.

The gun she used is meant to stun, not kill. For now.

Fuck that.

Kill her.

Make all your problems go away.

She walks right over Caitlyn and closes the door. It’s tempting to throw the queen of the pigs out into the streets and let the Zaunites deal with her, but she won’t. For Vi’s sake, she won’t.

But she fires another stun round. For good measure, and just because.

Still, Caitlyn doesn’t scream, just glares at her. Snarls at her.

“You! Where is Vi? Tell me!”

She doesn’t answer. She picks up Caitlyn’s gun.

It’s loaded. 

She points the gun at Caitlyn’s head. There’s no fear in the other omega’s eyes when she does. Just hate. So much hate.

The feeling is mutual.

She hates that Caitlyn smells like her sister because of the mating bond with Vi.

Pull the trigger.

Do it. Do it.

“I smell her on you. Where is she? Where is my mate?!”

Jinx’s upper lip twitches.

Mate? Caitlyn doesn’t deserve to call Vi that, not after everything she’s done to her.

“Answer me! What have you done to Vi? Something’s wrong with her scent. What did you do my mate?!”

What did she say?

What the fuck did she just say?

“What did I do?!” Jinx snarls back, grabbing a fistful of Caitlyn’s hair and pulling hard. She shoves the barrel of the gun against Caitlyn’s forehead, right between her eyes. “I saved her. I saved her! She was in pieces, falling apart, and I put her back together!”

Caitlyn stops breathing when Jinx says that.

Vi was hurt? Vi was dying?

She doesn’t feel Jinx yanking her hair. Doesn’t feel the gun on her head.

The memory of her mother, lying dead in the rubble, the fuel of her rage, shifts instead to the horrifying picture Jinx has just painted.

Vi.

In pieces.

Falling apart.

“And you have the fucking nerve to ask me what I’ve done? What have you done to my sister?! She goes bluebelly, trades her soul for a badge, follows you around like a loyal dog when you choke her own people with the Gray, and when that still wasn’t enough for you, you threw her away! You hurt her, and you threw her away, like she was nothing! That scar on her face. I know it’s from you. I just fucking know it.”

She remembers Vi grabbing her arm while pleading with her, begging with her to please, please understand. She remembers how gentle her mate was, and how she tried to hold her hand.

She remembers how angry she’d been, how hurt and betrayed she felt.

They’re mates. Vi was supposed to pick her over Jinx.

Vi was supposed to help her avenge her mother’s death.

She struck with her rifle first, and when Vi didn’t let go, she swiped at her face. With her omega strength, her nails cut deep, right across her mate’s face.

She’ll never forget the sound of Vi crying as she climbed up the ladder and didn’t look back.

Jinx laughs, cruel and taunting.

“But you didn’t stop there, did you? No, you just couldn’t let her waste away in peace. Had an itch only she could scratch. So you snap your fingers and there she was, ready to serve. And when you got yours, you just threw her away again. Over and over and over.”

Jinx pulls harder at her hair, but all she feels is the pain in her mate mark.

“Was she ever going to be enough for you? Did you even care about her, or did you just mate her to own her? Control her? Use her?”

“It’s not like that. It’s not,” she says. She pleads. “I didn’t use her. I love Vi. I never stopped. She has to know that. Please.”

Jinx laughs again, but this time, her voice cracks.

“Sure have a funny way of showing it. Know what she was saying when she was dying? ‘I’m sorry, Cait. I’m not good enough. Not strong enough. Bad mate. Unworthy. Unworthy. Sorry, so sorry you’re stuck with me.’” Jinx’s voice breaks. Her eyes are teary. “‘I couldn’t– she’s my sister. My sister. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’”

It’s heartbreaking how easily she can hear those words in Vi’s voice.

“Let me see Vi,” she begs Jinx, and it almost feels like her life depends on it. “You can do whatever you want after, just let me see her. Hand me to the Zaunites. Kill me. I don’t care. Just let me see my mate. Please. Let me talk to her.”

Jinx stares at her, tears still in her eyes, and then her face twists into a sneer.

Then everything goes black.

The last thing she remembers is Jinx giving a warning. A promise and a threat, all in one.

“You will never see my sister again.”

Jinx takes a long, thorough bath before she goes back to The Last Drop. She doesn’t want Caitlyn’s stink anywhere near Vi.

She goes in and finds Vi and Sevika sparring. It reminds her that Sevika used to train Vi whenever Vander was too busy.

“Hey, Pow!”

She smiles when Vi hurries over to her, completely forgetting about Sevika. Vi hugs her and she makes a face. “Ugh, you’re all sweaty. Gross! Get off, get off!”

Vi does the opposite and hugs her tighter.

Asshole.

“Off, you big, dumb alpha!”

Vi laughs and releases her this time.

Sevika is watching them with a weird look on her face. It almost looks like affection. She walks up to them. “Good time for a break,” she tells Vi, patting her on the shoulder. “Not bad this round, but you need to work on your guard.”

Vi scoffs and preens. “Not if I knock you out first!”

Sevika scoffs back. “Can't knock me out if you can't hit me. Be back in a few hours,” she says, giving her a look.

Talk to her, Sevika is saying with that look.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “See ya, Lefty.”

When Sevika leaves, Vi asks, “So, Pow, did you find any extra clothes at my old place?”

No, but I found your bitch of a mate, she wants to say, and knocked her out because she went feral.

Bitch actually went feral.

“Not unless you count bandages as clothes,” she says instead, and then looks at Vi, realizing her sister is wearing bandages instead of a shirt. Clean bandages, at least. “We’ll just get you new stuff. Maybe some actual shirts.”

“What, I think I look great! Look at me, Pow. Look at these.” Vi flexes her arms and grins like a smug bastard. “Can you believe how fucking huge I’ve gotten? And how good do these tattoos look on me?”

Jinx snorts, pretending to be annoyed. “Save it for the mirror.”

It’s nice to see Vi like this again. Confident. Proud.

Happy.

Are you really gonna shit all over that with the truth?

Look at her. Look how much she loves you right now.

Look how happy she is.

“C’mere.” She makes Vi sit on a bar stool while she sits on the bar itself, so she and Vi can be face to face. “So, I’ve been putting this off, filling in the blanks for you. Sorry. It probably wasn’t fun not knowing what the hell is going on, and it’s not fair I made you wait this long.”

Vi reaches for her hand and squeezes. “Hey. It hasn’t been that long. And I may not remember anything, but…” she trails off and looks around. The Last Drop has been abandoned since Vi and Sevika tore it apart fighting. It’s a neglected, abandoned mess now, so it’s no surprise when Vi correctly guesses, “Vander’s dead, isn’t he?”

She nods. “And Mylo,” she adds. Her hands are shaking. “And Claggor.”

Vi deserves the truth. All of it.

She won’t do what Caitlyn did.

She won’t keep Vi in the dark.

“What happened?”

Well.

Was fun while it lasted.

She sighs. “I happened.”

She tells Vi everything. Everything. Even the parts she doesn’t want to tell. Especially those. She wants Vi to know the whole, ugly truth. She watches Vi grow up as she does, watches the innocent look in those pink eyes fade away.

Vi is quiet for most of it. Listening. Processing.

When she’s done, Vi has questions.

“Caitlyn, my… mate. When you took her from her house, did you hurt her?”

She nods. “I was hurting over you, so I wanted her to feel it, too.” She hugs her knees and looks at anything but Vi. “She was so scared. Crying for you. Hoping you’d show up and save her.”

Vi doesn’t say anything, only touches her neck, where her mate mark is.

“I chose her over you?”

She shrugs, but she still doesn’t look at Vi. “You didn’t want to kill her for me, so it sure felt like it. But, hey, then you wouldn’t kill me for her, so I guess she and I are even. And I killed her mom.”

“Did you know her mom was there?”

“No,” she whispers, so quietly that Vi almost doesn’t hear her. “I still would have done it, but no. I didn’t know.”

Vi is quiet. She stands. She paces.

Then she comes back, taking her hand. She touches her metal finger.

“My mate did this?”

“Yep. Shot the whole finger right off.”

“And I helped her do it?”

“Also yep.”

“And I almost killed you?”

She finally looks at Vi, sees how confused and conflicted her sister looks, and it makes her squeeze her hand. “Almost. But you didn’t. You didn’t.”

“I can’t believe—“ Vi growls. She’s angry, but not with her. She’s angry with herself. “I can’t believe I almost did that. That I even went that far.” Vi touches her face, thumb brushing over her cheek, where she had hit her, all those years ago. “I can’t believe I hurt you, and you were just a small pup. My own sister. My baby sister. What kind of alpha am I?”

“Hey.” She covers Vi’s hand with her own and makes Vi look at her. “You are a good alpha. The best. Everything you’ve done, all your life, is for family. What more could anyone ask for from an alpha?”

“But I hurt you. I almost killed you.”

She hates seeing Vi like this. Unsure. Hating herself. Blaming herself.

“And my mate…” Vi shakes her head. “Why did I mate a topsider? An enforcer? What… what the fuck? What the fuck was I thinking? Why did I mate at all?”

She can’t help but laugh at that a little. “Not a mind reader, Sis, so can’t help you there. You were following her around like a lovesick puppy even before you mated.”

Vi frowns, and the sadness in her eyes is almost unbearable. It’s heartbreaking.

“Why did she leave me? Couldn’t she understand? Couldn’t she forgive me?”

She squeezes Vi’s hands. Wipes her tears away. She hesitates, but only for a moment. “You know, you could ask her,” she tells Vi, and she doesn’t miss how eager and hopeful those pink eyes look, all of a sudden. “You could go back to her, if that’s what you want. She’s your mate, after all, and… I know she’ll be happy to have you back.”

This is it.

Any second now, Vi’s going to step away from her.

Vi’s going to leave her. Again. Vi’s going to leave her and go back to her mate.

And forget about her.

But instead, Vi moves closer. Vi wraps both arms around her and hugs her tight.

“I’m not going anywhere, Powder. I’m where I should be, right here with you.”

Caitlyn comes to. She’s sitting up, and she’s restrained.

She’s still in Zaun, but not in Vi’s room.

Loris, she could tell now by scent.

“Finally out of it?” he asks, and when she nods, he starts to remove the restraints. “Sorry about these. You were feral when I found you.”

She remembers a trail of pink that she saw too late.

“Found me? Where?”

“At Vi’s.”

She remembers Jinx’s laugh. Cruel. Taunting.

“Was I alone?”

“Yes.”

Loris gets rid of the last of the restraints. She thanks him and rubs her wrists, feels the friction burns start to heal already. She stands and looks around. It’s a small room, likely where Loris has been staying. More space than Vi’s, and there’s an actual bed.

“Why did you go there?” she asks.

“Same reason you did. Hoped the Noxians were wrong and that she was there,” he says. “Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

The pain in her mate mark flares, and her chest tightens.

She walks to the window. She doesn’t want Loris to see her flinch. The pain persists, and she grits her teeth, trying to focus, instead, on the view.

She can see one of the checkpoints from here. She sees Zaunites provoking enforcers.

She remembers a warning. A threat.

“You will never see my sister again.”

She growls.

She will find her mate, even if she has to turn Zaun inside out and upside down.

Chapter Text

When the pain becomes manageable - present, ever present, but manageable - Caitlyn turns away from the window and faces Loris. He regards her with the suspicion and disdain she knows she deserves.

She’s an unwanted guest, and Loris is making sure that this, too, she knows.

She takes a seat. “You helped me. Why?” she asks him. “You could have left me there, let the Zaunites find me.” She looks at his broken leg, now in a splint. “It couldn’t have been easy in your current condition.”

“It wasn’t,” Loris confirms, and the look on his face tells her that he was certainly tempted to leave her there. “I did what I did because it’s what Vi would have wanted,” he says, and his voice is soft and fond when he speaks Vi’s name.

His tone, a father’s fondness for his daughter, and how he grieves her loss.

Caitlyn has always liked Loris, even now, when he clearly wishes Vi chose a better mate. She likes him even more now, come to think, for that. Even a beta could tell that Loris latched on to Vi like a protective father would to a daughter who sorely needed protecting, and it’s largely why Caitlyn looked past his drinking habit and its influence on Vi when she asked him to join the strike force.

She knows Loris reminded Vi of Vander, and that her mate feels horribly guilty about it. They have never talked about it. They haven’t had a chance to.

And never will, if Jinx has her way.

She suppresses a growl. She focuses on the conversation, on the last thing Loris said. Now that they don’t have Ambessa and her Noxians hovering over them, they can speak freely. Loris can tell her the truth.

“How did it happen?” she asks Loris, indicating his broken leg. “You said you tried to stop her?”

Loris sighs and hangs his head in shame. “When I saw her at the rally, I tried to get her out of there, but all I did was barely get in her way. I don’t know how she even knew about it, or how she even got there. The way she’d been the last month…” he trails off, a pained expression on his face, which he tries to hide. “I couldn’t even talk to her anymore. The shimmer, she wouldn’t - couldn’t - stop taking it. I tried to help her. I tried. Fuck, I tried, but I didn’t know what to do.”

You should have told me, Caitlyn wants to say. She wants to growl at Loris. I’m her mate, she wants to remind him. 

But what does that mean, coming from her?

“Did you just mate her to own her?”

“Control her?” 

“Use her?”

Her mate mark hurts. In protest, or in punishment, she can’t tell.

A month, Loris said. Vi started to get worse a month ago.

A month.

That’s when she had to keep her windows closed, when she couldn’t risk seeing Vi in fear of Ambessa finding out.

But Vi didn’t know that, and she had no way of letting her know. It’s difficult enough for Loris to send her those updates on Vi, only possible because of Maddie and Steb’s help. Even then, Loris’ reports are written in code that only the two of them could decipher.

How fitting, Caitlyn thinks, that the person she trusts most after Vi is a man who wouldn’t think twice about killing her, if her neck didn’t bear the mark of her mate.

Her mate. Oh, her mate.

What was Vi thinking for the last month?

“Had an itch only she could scratch.”

“And when you got yours, you just threw her away again.”

It’s you. The accusation is in Loris’ glare. This is your fault.

Vi is dead because of you, is what he’s saying, just not out loud.

She doesn’t respond to Loris. She doesn’t defend herself.

He looks at her with disgust and shakes his head. “I tried to take Vi here when she was just starting out in the pit,” he says, and she listens, eager to know something, anything of what her mate has been through since they separated. “At least sleep on an actual bed, I’d tell her, but she refused. Said something about how a failure like her belonged in that shithole.”

“Know what she was saying when she was dying? ‘I’m sorry, Cait. I’m not good enough. Not strong enough. Bad mate. Unworthy. Unworthy. Sorry, so sorry you’re stuck with me.’”

Loris shakes his head again, muttering, “That damned mating bond. Stuff of nightmares, is what it is. And so young, both of you. How could you even have the slightest idea that this is something you’d want for the rest of your lives?”

Caitlyn sighs. She knows what this is. It’s the same lecture she got from her father, after she and Vi had mated.

She doesn’t intend to have the same argument with Loris.

She touches her mate mark. “What do you know about mating bonds, Loris?” she asks instead of answering his question.

Loris scoffs, annoyed that she ignored his ranting, but he indulges her.

“I’m Piltovan, same as you, and you probably know more about it now than I do.”

“But you’ve been around Zaunites for the better part of the year, living amongst them,” she points out. “They have more alphas and omegas than we do. Surely, they have more knowledge.”

“They know not to do it,” he says. “In the pit, I heard whispers in the crowd sometimes, when people noticed your mark on Vi’s neck. They’d say she’s crazy for doing it, and even crazier that she did it with you, of all people. Zaunites don’t mate. Life is too dangerous here. Your mate dies and that’s it. You don’t get to have another one. Didn’t Vi tell you this?”

“She did. She told me everything she knew before we mated.”

She doesn’t say more than that. She doesn’t say that there may be things Vi has never heard or learned because of her time in Stillwater. She doesn’t say because she knows Vi hasn’t told Loris anything about her past, and it’s not for her to tell.

Just as it isn’t for her to tell that Jinx is Vi’s sister.

She glances at the window. It’ll be sunrise soon. She should leave while it’s still dark.

Unexpectedly, Loris speaks up.

“There was this one night, outside the bar. Vi’s passed out from the shimmer,” he says, and mutters something about how he should have tried harder to stop her. “This yordle walks up to us. I think she knew Vi.”

“What makes you think that?”

Loris scoffs like she should have known the answer. “Because she was the first Zaunite I ran into who actually gave a shit about Vi,” he says about the yordle. “Zaunites hated her. As far as they’re concerned, she was a traitor, Commander Kiramman’s branded pet dog. They laughed about you throwing her away. They laughed at her for scurrying back to Zaun with her tail between her legs. They bet on her to lose in the pit, bet extra for her to die. They didn’t care how good she was, that she never lost. They’d rather lose what little money they have than put it on her.”

Caitlyn doesn’t look away, not even when Loris’ words had long turned into a snarl.

All she can think about is Vi, how she had no place to go. How alone she must have felt. 

“The yordle,” she prompts Loris, “what did she say?”

He sneers at her, but he responds. “She asked me how long you two have been apart. I asked her why that matters. She said she’s been alive long enough to remember when mating was more common between alphas and omegas, and she’s never known mated pairs to separate for long, no matter how much they couldn’t stand each other. They sucked it up, stuck together, and then worked through it.”

“Did she say why?” she asks, and Loris shakes his head.

“Something about the mating bond, how it didn’t seem to like distance, she told me. I didn’t think much of it. To me, she was the only Zaunite who still cared about Vi, and she was worried. Does make me wonder now, though, if there was another reason Vi’s been chasing fistfights and shimmer.”

The pain all over her body since she left Vi.

The pain in her mate mark since she thought she’d lost Vi. The pain that continues despite knowing she’s still alive.

The desperate, consuming need to find her mate, that she couldn’t think or care about anything else.

Has Vi been feeling all this, too?

“Pow, we got something back there besides juice?”

“Nope.”

Vi frowns at her.

“You didn’t even check.”

“Nope.”

“Fine, I’ll do it my–”

“Nope,” Jinx says again, and, to get her point across, she fills Vi’s empty glass with more juice. “No booze for you, remember?”

“But–”

“I don’t care if these don’t have shimmer in them,” she cuts Vi off again, and this time, she growls. “There’s shimmer in you, Sis. It’s in your body. It’s in your blood. It changed the color of your eyes, fuck’s sake.” She pauses to calm down, to stop growling. She can see Vi’s upper lip start to curl, and the last thing she wants is to argue with her stubborn sister. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to you if you mix booze with whatever the fuck is going on in your body now, so just lay off this shit. You’re not a beta. We can cut you right off, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, got it?”

Vi’s upper lip twitches, ready to bare her fangs in challenge, but she stops and sighs instead. “Got it,” she mutters, almost pouting like a pup who’s just been scolded.

“Good.”

“Can you at least add more sugar to this? Or give me something sweeter?”

Jinx rolls her eyes.

“Please?”

“You and that damned sweet tooth of yours,” she grumbles, but she does add more sugar to Vi’s drink. “Say when.”

Vi doesn’t tell her to stop until there's an ungodly amount of sugar in the juice.

She makes a face. “You can’t be serious. This is gross.”

Vi mixes it and takes a little sip. Her face lights up like a box of fireworks. “Thanks, Pow!” she happily says before taking a swig.

Jinx snorts, but she’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah. Enjoy your sugary abomination, Sis.”

Enjoy it, Vi does.

It’s a horror to witness, and it’s even worse the second time.

“So,” Vi says instead of asking for another refill, “was it really that bad? My drinking?”

Jinx frowns. She takes a sip of her own juice before answering. “Well, it got you killed, so it wasn’t good,” she tries to joke but it doesn’t land, not with her voice quivering like that. “I should have kept a better eye on you. I should have known how bad you’d gotten with the shimmer.”

Vi holds her hand, and she realizes it’s because it’s trembling. She looks down and stares at Vi’s hand, at the little blue cracks there. It doesn’t look like it anymore, but that same hand had been a mess of split and splintered bone, skin, and muscle, so much that Jinx wondered if even shimmer could make it whole again.

Like the rest of Vi.

Vi looks whole. On the outside.

Inside?

Jinx can only guess.

“Why weren’t you with me?” Vi asks quietly, like she’s afraid to say it all. “If my mate left me because I couldn’t go through with it, then why weren’t you with me? Did I say something, do something? Did I…” she stops and looks at their hands. “Did I hurt you bad, when we were fighting? Or after that, when my mate left, did I take it out on you?”

“No. Hey,” Jinx says, and when Vi tries to let go of her hand, she doesn’t let her. “You didn’t, okay? You didn’t. You didn’t take it out on me, and you didn’t hurt me. You were even pulling your punches.”

“I was?”

She nods, smiling a little. “And you broke my fall after I shot you with a rocket. You really sucked at pretending you wanted to kill me, Sis, is what I’m saying. Can’t imagine how pissed your mate must have been.” She looks at the scar across Vi’s face that cuts right through the tattoo, and her smile drops.

Vi’s so worried about hurting the two stupid omegas she loves that she doesn’t think, for one second, that they’d hurt her instead.

Jinx sighs. She squeezes Vi’s hand. “I wasn’t with you because I was scared,” she admits, finally answering Vi’s question. “Your mate left you because of me. I thought you hated me, that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. I felt that way when you chose her. She felt that way when you chose me. So, why wouldn’t you? You should have hated her. You should have hated me.”

And she knows - she just knows - that Vi is about to say something heartbreakingly sweet.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way, Powder.”

Damn it.

She laughs. She cries, and Vi wipes her tears.

“So you’ve always been like this,” she says, more to herself than to Vi. “I should have done more, done something. I should have chased that mate of yours away when I saw her leaving your place that night. I should have stopped you from crawling back to her every damn night after that.”

She closes her eyes when Vi’s forehead rests against hers.

“You saved my life, Pow. You’ve done plenty.”

She laughs again, this time without tears.

“Got me there, Sis.”

The Last Drop is a mess. Broken furniture. Busted lights. Smashed windows. A pool table cut in half.

A Sevika-shaped dent on the bar. And on the jukebox, until she fixed it.

“Gonna take a lot of work to get The Drop up and running again,” Vi says. “That’s the plan, right? Fix up The Drop, make it home again.”

Home. This place?

Jinx shrugs. “Didn’t really plan past bringing you back from the dead, Sis,” she tells Vi. “I wouldn’t even call that a plan. Act of desperation? Yep. Plan? Nope.” She stands up and walks up to Vi, who picks up one half of a pool table with almost no effort. She knows that Vi is even stronger now because of the shimmer, but to actually see it is something else. “Wow. Who needs bitch mittens when you can do that?”

Vi blinks. “Bitch mittens?”

“Those clunky, overdesigned hextech gauntlets you were running around with,” she explains.

“Bitch mittens,” Vi repeats, and Jinx cackles.

“Hey, I call it like I see it!”

Vi laughs. “Don’t remember what they look like, so I’m taking your word for it.”

“Trust me, Sis. Overdesigned. Bitch. Mittens. I could do better. A lot better,” she tells Vi.

Huh. There’s an idea.

The door opens, and there’s Sevika, who looks surprised to see Vi. So surprised that she actually smiles.

“Nice to see you’re still around, Vi. I’m glad Jinx did the right thing.”

Jinx scoffs. “And you look funny when you–” she starts to quip, but stops when she hears Vi snarl.

The pool table half suddenly flies by her and breaks the door. It would have hit Sevika if she hadn’t stepped aside at the last second.

“Vi, what the hell are you–”

Vi interrupts Sevika, this time with a fist to the face.

Jinx winces in sympathy when she sees several teeth fly off.

At least none of them are fangs, she thinks, and it won't hurt when they grow back.

Sevika stumbles but stays on her feet, and then dodges the next flurry of punches. “Will you calm down?!” she growls, and Vi growls back.

“You fucking traitor!”

“What did you tell her, Jinx?!”

Jinx shrugs. “The truth,” she answers, and when Sevika snarls at her, she says, “Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Vi’s still here. Aren’t you proud of me?”

Sevika couldn’t respond, taking a fist to the face again from Vi. The punch sends her to the wall, and she’s barely able to get out of the way of a shoulder ram that nearly breaks the wall down.

“Vi, come on,” Jinx groans. “Now we have to fix that!”

Sevika blocks an elbow from Vi with her metal arm and then throws the large plastic bag she’s been carrying to Jinx. “Hold this while I deal with your sister,” she says, not taking her eyes off Vi.

Jinx catches the bag and peeks inside. “You got us Jericho’s?! Aw, Lefty, look at you,” she coos, “being a good, providing papa.”

“Papa?!” Sevika shrieks, and almost doesn’t duck in time. “Never call me that! Never!”

Jinx cackles and takes the bag of food somewhere safe. She then sits on the bar, watching the two alphas, with Vi just throwing punch after punch and Sevika dodging all of them.

Vi is all power and aggression, but she’s also clumsy and awkward, like she’s not used to her own body and her own strength. She over commits with her punches and she’s slow to recover.

Sevika, working with experience and patience Vi doesn’t have, sees every hit coming.

Too bad the rest of The Drop’s furniture isn’t as lucky.

Jinx rubs her temples when the other half of the pool table ends up stuck in a wall.

“Okay, wrap it up before you two make The Drop fall on our heads,” she barks, standing up and approaching the two alphas, just as Sevika finally manages to grapple Vi to the ground and restrain her with her metal arm.

“Ready to talk this out or do you want to keep swinging and missing?” Sevika asks Vi, who thrashes and snarls.

“I’m ready to break your face!”

Jinx clicks her tongue and squats next to the two alphas. “Be nice, Sis,” she tells Vi. “Sevika got you the fish in sauce. Your favorite! So how about we stop destroying what’s left of The Drop and sit down and eat?”

Vi just keeps snarling, keeps trying to pry Sevika’s metal arm off. It should hold, even with Vi’s enhanced strength. Jinx built that arm to last and take hits from both chemtech and hextech weapons.

But she sees it too late.

Vi’s eyes glowing.

Jinx acts quickly, using her shimmer speed to separate Vi and Sevika. She pushes Vi against the wall, yelling, “Go!” at Sevika, who scrambles all the way to the opposite wall. The metal arm lands between them.

Vi had ripped it apart, just like that, and she’d have done the same to Sevika if Jinx hadn’t gotten in the way.

Because Vi is feral now, and out for blood.

Jinx holds on to Vi, using all her strength to keep Vi there, away from Sevika. She knows Vi won’t hurt her. Family is the one bond a feral alpha or omega will still recognize. She holds Vi’s face and makes Vi look at her.

This alpha, eyes glowing like shimmer, large fangs bared, hissing and spitting rage, looks more like a monster than her sister.

But she holds on. She calls out to Vi, asking her to please, please snap out of it.

It takes only minutes, but long enough to feel a strain in her muscles from trying to keep Vi still. Long enough that she fears she wouldn’t have the strength to stop Vi from attacking Sevika.

And then, thankfully, Vi stops and stays still.

They’re both quiet. Not moving. Just breathing.

Then Vi’s forehead rests on hers, and the shimmer glow finally fades.

“Powder.” Vi’s voice is rough and raspy, but Jinx can hear the familiar softness that’s starting to come back. “It’s me. It’s me, Pow.”

She nods, and she eases her grip, but she doesn’t let go of Vi. It turns out to be a good idea because Vi growls when Sevika walks up to them. “Don’t start,” she warns, glaring at Vi.

“But–”

“But nothing!” she growls, and Vi flinches like a pup who knows she’s in trouble. “Yeah, Sevika did a shitty thing, and you’re thinking, what if she didn’t? What if she didn’t betray Vander? Well, what if I listened to you and didn’t get our family killed? What if you didn’t mate a topsider and turned bluebelly? What if you didn’t hit me?” She feels bad when she sees how wounded Vi looks, but she keeps going. Vi needs to hear it. “What if I didn’t blow up the council? What if we didn’t steal those crystals? What if Vander didn’t try to drown Silco?” When Vi still has no answer, she asks, “What part of the past are you going to pick out so you can find an excuse to punch someone?”

Vi scowls, defiant, stubborn, and proud of it.

It’s Sevika who speaks up next.

“Listen to your sister, Vi. What she’s saying is true.”

Vi scoffs. “What, that we’re all pieces of shit?”

Jinx laughs. “Close enough.”

Caitlyn is in her study, staring at the photographs laid out on her desk, all taken from the scene at Vander’s statue. The reports and statements have been set aside. She’s read each of them, twice, thrice, and then again after that.

No statements from Zaunites, as expected. But no casualties, either. Curious.

A leader amongst them, a voice they follow, who directed those who could fight, and kept safe those who couldn’t from both the Noxians and Vi while they made their escape.

Ekko? No. He’s dead. He has to be, else he’d have given her a piece of his mind the day martial law was declared and she was made commander. It also can’t be Scar or any of the other Firelights, since they’ve been laying low.

Jinx? No. Her presence would have caused a bigger stir, and even the Noxians wouldn’t lie about that.

Sevika? Maybe. She and Jinx seem to have formed something of an alliance, and before that, she was Silco’s second-in-command.

Sevika. Maybe.

All the Noxian soldiers who survived the blast have the exact same story: the Zaunites, after becoming unruly and violent during the rally, were being arrested when Vi turned up, armed with the gauntlets and feral. Amid the chaos, Rictus, in an attempt to disable one of the gauntlets, struck the gemstone with his halberd and triggered the explosion.

Then the lie: that Vi is dead, and there’s nothing left of her.

Caitlyn sits down, anticipating the flare of pain in her mate mark. She brings the Kiramman banner she’s holding to her nose, the same banner she found in Vi’s room. It still smelled strongly of her mate, and it helps with the pain somewhat.

She’ll be sure to thank Loris for taking the banner when he found her in Vi’s room, feral and out of her mind, and for him having the mercy or pity to give it to her before she returned to Piltover.

She’ll tell him Vi is still alive, once she knows it’s safe for him to know. Once she has Vi back, preferably.

She bunches up the banner in both her hands and buries her nose in the crumpled cloth, desperately breathing in her mate’s scent. It’s not enough, not nearly - she needs Vi back, she needs her back - but it’ll have to do, for now.

She thinks of Vi wrapped up in this banner, cold, shivering, and alone.

She thinks of Vi loose at the rally, and what a terrifying force her mate must have been. A dozen Noxians died, but only four lost their lives to the explosion. Rictus himself had looked worse for wear when he rushed over to report what had happened. Even Ambessa couldn’t hide her surprise at the sight of him.

A thought comes to her, a temptation to taunt Ambessa: do you still think my mate is weak?

Her mate is strong. Her mate is worthy.

Her mistake is losing sight of that. Her mistake is losing Vi.

And now Vi is out there, somewhere in Zaun, with Jinx.

Caitlyn snarls.

Jinx.

Vi’s scent on Jinx, its most recent trace, is different. Something about it smelled off. Smelled wrong.

What has Jinx done to Vi?

She almost rips the banner

First her mother. Now her mate. What else is Jinx going to take from her?

She shakes her head. She breathes, and tries to calm down.

The banner is still whole, thankfully.

Reluctantly, she decided to put it away. She folds it carefully and places it inside a drawer with a lock. Her father is likely to come knocking soon to bring her more food. He’s been worried about her and insisting that they sit down and talk, especially after she had run off to Zaun without telling him.

She leans against her chair and reaches for a photograph. The center of the explosion, where the Noxians claimed Vi had died.

It begs the question: why does Ambessa want her to think Vi is dead?

Caitlyn hears a knock on the door and catches a scent she isn’t expecting.

It’s not her father.

It’s Ambessa.

She places the photograph back on her desk. “Come in,” she says, and the door opens.

Ambessa enters alone, and it’s odd to see her without Rictus trailing after her like a shadow. Even odder is that Ambessa is pushing a serving cart filled to the brim with her favorite meals, fresh from the kitchen.

“General,” she greets, hiding the confusion in her voice. “What’s all this?”

“Commander,” Ambessa greets back. “Pardon the unannounced visit. Your father asked for me. He’s worried about you.”

Caitlyn raises an eyebrow, especially when Ambessa closes the door. Still, she doesn’t move. “Is there a reason my father is unable to bring me food?” she asks.

Ambessa approaches, glancing briefly at the photographs and documents she has on her desk before meeting her gaze. “This was done on my request. You were in Zaun for half a day, Commander, and with hardly anything to eat, I’m certain. Not for a beta, so what more for an omega?” She takes a plate from the cart and places it on the table.

It’s a large cut of steak, and Caitlyn curses her body when her mouth waters at the smell. Ambessa is right. She’s hungry. Starving, even. She could clean out every plate in that cart, given the chance.

But then she thinks of Vi, of her mate hurt and recovering from her wounds, needing just as much food, if not more, and she loses her appetite.

“Thank you, General,” she tells Ambessa, “but I can eat later. Why are you here?”

Again, Ambessa glances at her desk, but doesn’t comment. “Your father is worried about you, as I’ve said, and he’s asked for my help. I may be a beta, but I am Noxian, and I’ve raised two omegas.” Ambessa’s expression changes, and, for a moment, she looks like a mother grieving for her children. “My daughter’s loss is a wound in my heart that still feels fresh and will continue to bleed, and it’s a pain I don’t wish for your father to feel. You put your life at risk when you went to Zaun, Caitlyn, and, for that, I am to blame.”

Caitlyn. How Ambessa says it, with that motherly tone, it almost sounds like how her mother used to say her name.

Does it?

She can’t remember, not really, only that she wishes she could hear her mother’s voice again because she’s forgotten what she sounded like.

It’s always drowned out by Jinx’s laughter when she tries to remember.

Ambessa’s hand rests on her shoulder, heavier than her mother’s hand ever felt.

“I know you’ve been seeing Vi, Caitlyn.”

She wants to stand and put some distance between her and Ambessa. She wants to throw that closed door open and escape this space that feels too small all of a sudden. But the hand on her shoulder keeps her grounded and silent.

“I was hoping you would trust me, that you would confide in me, but it was unfair of me to make you bear such steep expectations. Neither of my children was mated, so who was I to impose these expectations on you? You’re young, Caitlyn - much too young to mate - and I was wrong to make you feel weak for seeking out your mate.”

She’s barely listening. Her mind is racing, going through every instance Loris sent her messages in secret and in code, and of every time Vi climbed in and out of her window. She’d been careful, meticulous. Hadn’t she?

Hadn’t she?

So how does Ambessa know about Vi?

A spy following her every move? A spy in her own ranks?

Her recklessness and desperation?

“I’ve seen what separation does to mated alphas and omegas.”

That gets her attention, and she can’t hide it.

“A mating bond is a ravenous creature, Caitlyn, an ever demanding force of nature that can only be sated by your mate. Deny it, and it will punish you, worsening over time. Pain so crippling that, eventually, lifting a finger will feel like an impossible task. Madness eating away at your mind until you’re nothing more than instinct and raw, wild omega with a singular need: your mate.”

Yes, something primal, something omega in Caitlyn agrees. She needs her alpha, her mate. She needs Vi.

It’s a struggle not to voice it, to keep her breathing even and to stay calm. She manages, barely, and asks Ambessa a question.

“And those who have lost their mates, what happened to them?”

It’s more a deflection than a question, an attempt to throw Ambessa off the trail. A losing battle, but Caitlyn fights all the same.

Ambessa stares at her, as if waiting for what she really wants to say, but when she remains silent, she gets an answer. 

“They wither away. Warriors. Brilliant minds. Indomitable wills. It mattered not. I’ve seen them all broken by their grief, and how it slowly consumed them until there was nothing left.”

Ambessa squeezes her shoulder, and it almost startles Caitlyn because she’s forgotten that the woman’s heavy hand is on her shoulder.

“If, by some miracle, Vi lives, I fear it won’t be for long. Your mate is strong, Caitlyn. Resilient. But if she has yet to come to you, as your bond demands, then it means her wounds are grave and she’s in dire need of medical attention, or,” Ambessa pauses, but Caitlyn already sees red, “or she’s being kept away from you.”

“You will never see my sister again.”

Jinx, and that laugh. Those pink eyes, mad and wicked.

Jinx, all bared teeth and snarling, slapping her across the face when she dared to whimper Vi’s name out of fear, out of hope that Vi would come save her.

Jinx, with a crude knife, digging into the stitches on her leg, screaming, why, why did you take Vi away from me?

Caitlyn gasps, and she sees that she’s in her office. That Ambessa is here with her, now cradling her face. There’s worry in the woman’s eyes, the sort a mother has for her child.

She closes her eyes, wishing for her mother. Missing her.

She takes a breath. Shaky. Then another. Steady. She opens her eyes.

“Vi is alive,” she tells Ambessa. “Jinx has her.”

“You sure about this?” Jinx asks at Sevika, whispering low enough for Vi not to hear.

Vi is walking ahead of them, leading the way to Jericho’s stall. It turns out that the food Sevika got wasn’t nearly enough for Vi, so here they are. Jinx wanted Sevika to go by herself, but Vi, who never could sit still, insisted on coming along.

“You can’t keep her in The Drop forever,” Sevika whispers back, “and you can’t keep hiding forever, either. Like it or not, you’re part of this fight. Both of you.”

Her metal finger twitches, an urge to flip Sevika off.

They can fuck right off, all of them.

You owe them nothing. Nothing.

Remember when they laughed at you when you were a pup? Laughed because nothing you made ever worked. Because you screwed up all the time.

Remember how scared they were when you proved them wrong? When you showed them?

Remember what they called you?

Silco’s psycho little attack dog.

The crazy bitch who talks to herself.

And now they kiss the ground you walk on because you did something none of these cowards would dare do.

Remember who always believed in you? Who never gave up on you? Who chose you over her own mate?

Vi.

She watches Vi, sees how her sister’s red hair is making head turns. Sees the recognition on their faces. She hears what they’re saying.

“That hair. That’s Vi, isn’t it?”

“Got some nerve, showing her face around here."

"Traitor."

"Bluebelly scum.”

“Should stay in the pit, getting the shit beaten out of her.”

Like any of you would stand back up after one punch.

“I’d cover up that mark, if I were her, be ashamed that I’ve been branded by the queen of the pigs.”

That makes Vi stop and look at who said it. Another alpha. Vi steps forward, and the other alpha steps back, until she’s backed into a wall. Vi stands there, hands in her jacket pockets, and just keeps looking the other alpha in the eyes. No sneering. No growling. Vi is just looking at the other alpha like she’s looking at a cockroach trying to find a way out.

The other alpha looks away and cowers.

Vi doesn’t say anything and keeps walking, head held up high.

Jinx wants to glare at the alpha, but she can’t. That alpha’s hair is dyed blue, which means she’ll probably recognize her when she sees her eyes. She’s about to ask Sevika to do the glaring for her when she notices Sevika looking at Vi with a smirk on her face.

“You know,” she says as they catch up to Vi, and Sevika is already annoyed, “for someone who doesn’t wanna be called Papa, you sure are acting like a proud one right now.”

Sevika scoffs. “Just for that, you’re making me a better arm.”

“Better?” she sputters. “What’s wrong with the one I already made you?”

“Your sister wrecked it. Chance to improve it, if you ask me.”

“Improve? That design was made with love, Lefty!”

“Got a little carried away with it, is what you did.”

“Are you… are you saying that I made something that’s overdesigned? Overdesigned? Me?”

“An arm with actual fingers,” Sevika demands, ignoring her offended squawking. “Keep the slots. I liked it. Add a shimmer pump like my old one.”

Jinx is the one scoffing this time. “No shimmer,” she says, and Sevika grumbles.

“Fine.”

She turns her attention back to Vi, who’s still walking ahead of them. As much as she’d like to, she can’t walk side by side with her sister. She really doesn’t want to be swarmed by a bunch of blue-haired twits.

Besides, Vi is fine, walking down the street like she owns it. Jinx remembers this Vi, the young alpha who’s happy to take her father’s place, happy to lead Zaun and fight for it. This Vi, who’s strong and unbreakable, and she knows it.

More people are talking about Vi, but some are singing a different tune.

“Is it true it was Vi at the rally? That she saved everyone from getting arrested?”

“Took a bunch of Noxians out, even.”

“That was her? I thought she’s mated to that royal bitch Kiramman.”

“She is, but why does that matter if she’s punching Noxians and topsiders?”

Jinx feels Sevika elbow her, and then give her a look that clearly says, see? Told you so.

She rolls her eyes.

Now they like Vi, after she got blown up saving their sorry asses.

Zaun and its people can burn.

They don’t deserve Vi.

No one does.

Sevika suddenly grabs her shoulder, stopping her. She almost growls at her when she sees it, too, the blue and gold.

Enforcers, three of them. Shit.

And they’re heading straight for Vi.

“That patrol shouldn’t be here for another hour. They may have changed it up after the rally,” Sevika says, pulling her into the crowd and yanking her hood further down. “Stay put unless you want to be spotted.”

Jinx growls. Sevika is right and she hates that.

Everyone’s gone quiet, and everyone’s watching.

“516? Hah, I was right! I knew it was you!” one of the enforcers, the woman among them, yells loudly, wanting everyone to hear her. She and the other two enforcers run up to Vi. “I’d know that red hair anywhere.”

516.

Is that Vi’s inmate number?

This enforcer knows Vi. From Stillwater.

Vi, her hands still in her jacket pockets, shrugs at the enforcer. “Sorry. Don’t remember you,” she says, having no fucks to give. “Or you two,” she tells the other two. “The fuck you want, pigs?”

The enforcer laughs, exaggerating it by throwing her head back. She throws an arm around Vi’s shoulders and Jinx can tell she’s grinning like a creep under her mask. “Don’t be like that, 516. We’re all old friends here. We’ve known you since you were this high,” she says, the height she’s indicating matching Vi’s when she was sixteen. “Why, we practically raised you, didn’t we, fellas?”

“Sure did,” one of the men agrees. “You were just a, what’d they call it? A pup!”

“A wee pup,” the other man says. “Tough little shit, you were.”

The woman laughs again. “Vicious, too,” she says, and then she grabs Vi’s face, pushing her lips back to expose her fangs. “That's why we had to pull those babies out. Damn, look at them now. They supposed to be that big or is it because we kept taking them out?”

Jinx snarls. It’s drowned out by the horrified murmurs from the crowd.

They pulled out Vi’s fangs?

Fangs grow back overnight. Painfully.

They pulled out Vi’s fangs. Every day. For seven years.

“Are you really living down here now, 516?” the woman asks, and she’s smart enough to get her hands off Vi’s face, but not smart enough to shut the fuck up. “We all thought the commander just decided to keep you home because you couldn’t follow orders outside the bedroom. She really dumped you, huh? Here I thought you trencher alphas were great fucks and that’s why she locked you down with a bite. Maybe you should have spent your prison days fucking instead of picking fights and asking about that powder of yours.”

Powder.

Vi was asking about her, beating it out of other prisoners, Silco’s goons.

Vi wasn’t lying when she said seeing her again was the only thing that kept her going in Stillwater.

Vi really never gave up on her.

The enforcers take off their masks. They’re laughing, patting each other on the back while they talk about the good old days of beating the shit out of Vi, and how impressive it was that she healed so fast. They nudge and tease Vi like she’s supposed to be part of the joke, asking: 

“Remember that?” 

When they broke her bones just to see how fast she’d heal.

“Or that?”

When they used a cattle prod on her to see how long she could stay conscious.

“How about that?”

When they used her for target practice during her ruts.

The enforcers don’t notice that the crowd is closing in on them, that the alphas and omegas there are starting to growl, even the ones who were talking shit about Vi earlier. Sevika is taking the lead, the loudest of them.

The enforcers only stop laughing when Vi spits on the ground. They almost scatter like scavenging rats that just woke up a sleeping wolf.

“Nope,” Vi says, shrugging and then rolling her right shoulder. “Not ringing a bell.”

“Wait,” the bitch with the big mouth speaks up, “weren’t your eyes a different color, 516?”

Jinx is there in an instant, between the enforcer and Vi. She laughs when the woman backs up so fast that she trips on her own feet and the other two enforcers barely catch her in time. “Pink and pretty, ain’t it?” she says about Vi’s eyes, and they notice hers. “Don’t we make a pair, my sister and I?”

“Sister? Who are you?”

Jinx shrugs just like Vi did. Her cloak is on the ground. She lets the crowd answer for her.

“Jinx!”

“It’s Jinx!”

“She’s here, she’s really here!”

The enforcers realize, finally, that they’re surrounded. They whisper to each other, and she hears every word.

“Shit. I think it really is her. Shit! What do we do?”

“Backup. We need backup!”

“Flare! Use your flares!”

Jinx holds up three flares and whistles at the enforcers. “Looking for these?” she asks, grinning when she sees the blood drain from their faces and sees the fear in their eyes, the realization that she also took their weapons. She drops them all to the ground.

Sevika walks up to the enforcers, sneering at them in disgust. “About time you topsiders get what’s coming to you. See what happens when you mess with one of our own,” she growls, “see how you like feeling helpless and scared.”

Jinx looks at the woman and her trigger finger itches. She’s tempted to put a bullet between her eyes.

No.

Too easy.

Too nice.

So she stands back, with Vi, and they watch Sevika and the crowd go in for the kill.

They get free meals from every food stall, after that.

Jinx is hours into her current project when she decides to take a break. It’s late, and she wants to check on Vi. Sevika came up earlier to tell her that she and Vi were done training for the day.

Vi’s got a lot to learn and relearn before she’s back to her usual fighting self, Sevika said, but she’s a natural and a quick study. Biggest challenge is going to be patience, but Vi wouldn’t be Vi if she didn’t have a problem with patience.

Jinx makes her way downstairs. She’s set up a little workshop in the office so she can stay in The Drop with Vi. It’s cramped but she’ll make do.

Vi is sitting cross-legged on the bar, downing a glass of juice that’s undoubtedly more sugar than anything else. She sees her coming down the stairs and smiles at her. “Hey, Pow. How’s the tinkering going?”

Jinx gets her own juice and climbs on the bar to sit next to Vi. “Design’s all done. Now I just gotta do the work. If Lefty doesn’t like it, I’ll shove that new arm up her ass. Overdesigned,” she grumbles. “What the hell does she know about overdesigned?” She scowls at Vi when she hears her laugh. “Something funny, Sis?”

Vi grins and ruffles her hair, and she pretends to be annoyed by it.

“Hey!”

“I’m not laughing at you, Pow,” Vi says, still grinning. “I just think it’s amazing you can build a metal arm from scratch. I always knew you were a genius, but to actually see it? It’s unbelievable, in the best way. Feels like just yesterday you were talking to me about making a nail bomb.”

To Vi, it may really have been just yesterday when that happened.

“And, hey, I’m sorry for breaking Sevika’s metal arm.” Vi’s grin falls, and she looks away. “I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to get out of the clinch, and then I got pissed that I couldn’t, and next thing I knew, the arm’s been ripped off and you’re holding me back from Sevika.”

“It’s the shimmer,” Jinx says, frowning. “Made you really strong like how it makes me really fast, but looks like it makes you feral, too. If I had to guess, it’s probably because you’re hooked on it.”

“Well, shit,” Vi blurts out, and they both laugh a little.

“Tell me about it,” she agrees. “Did it feel like something you could do on purpose? Something you can control?” she asks.

Vi frowns. “I don’t know. I got pissed, and then it just happened.”

Jinx reaches for Vi’s free hand. “It’s okay. We’ll keep an eye on it. Figure it out.” She looks down and notices all the scars on Vi’s arm, the ones that aren't blue and glowing. When she first saw them, she had her suspicions that not all of them were from fighting, and now, thanks to those enforcers, she knows they’re not.

And Vi has so many of those scars. So many.

“Hey.” She squeezes Vi’s hand. “Are you okay?”

Vi looks confused. “Yeah, Pow, I’m okay. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just… what those enforcers said.” Her jaw clenches and she’s suddenly hyper aware of her fangs, and what the woman said about pulling Vi’s out. “Sorry if that blindsided you. You never told me any of that. I only knew you were Stillwater after we saw each other again. I’ve heard what they do to alphas there. I just didn’t think it was that bad.”

Vi looks at her arm, at the same scars she’s looking at, and takes a while to answer. “It feels like it happened to someone else. It’s like how I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s skin, and I’m still getting used to it. Sometimes, it’s easy. Other times, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel right again,” she says, and then sighs. “Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t remember things like Stillwater.”

Jinx takes a long sip. “Maybe it is.”

“How about you, Pow?” Vi asks, squeezing her hand. “How are you feeling? You didn’t have to show yourself if you really didn’t want to. I could have handled those enforcers.”

Jinx scoffs and leans on Vi. “I wanted to,” she says simply, and then adds, just as simply, “you’re my sister.”

Vi responds with a happy purr, and Jinx smiles.

“You going to bed or getting more juice?” she asks Vi, nodding at the empty glass her sister is holding.

Vi puts the glass down. “Can’t sleep, actually. Tried a few times already.”

Jinx sits back to look at Vi. She notices that Vi isn’t purring anymore.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” Vi says, a little too quickly. “It’s just the pain bothering me, that’s all. Makes it hard to sleep.”

“Pain?” Jinx repeats, confused. “What pain?”

“My whole body hurts, and it’s not from training. It feels like all my muscles are cramping up, but they’re not. It just feels that way. It’s all in my head, but it feels so real.” Vi lifts her hand, hesitates, and then touches her mate mark. “Hurts the most here, like something’s trying to tear it out or cut through it.”

Jinx stares, first at Vi’s face, and then at the mate mark. “And it always feels like that?” she asks.

“Since I woke up,” Vi answers. “It’s not so bad,” she says, and Jinx wonders if it’s only that way because Vi’s body is so used to pain. “Moving around helps keep my mind off it. Trying to sleep is the worst. All I can think about is the pain, and I feel so restless when I stay still. I feel this… pull,  like I have to keep moving, or I have to go somewhere.”

Or go to someone.

Like your mate.

“This’ll go away, right, Pow?” Vi asks, and there’s only one honest thing for Jinx to say.

“I wish.”

Caitlyn is staring at her open window. She can’t sleep. She won’t. She knows it. She knows it like she knows that Vi won’t be climbing in through the window. That Vi won’t sweep her up in her arms, kiss her, and tell her everything is going to be okay.

She’s wrapped herself in the Kiramman banner that smells like Vi. She buries her nose in it, desperately breathing in her mate’s scent.

But still, her body hurts.

Still, her mate mark hurts.

She turns away from the window and closes her eyes. She tries to remember a time when Vi warmed her and not just her bed.

Caitlyn slams the door when she enters their room, and Vi rushes over to her. She lets herself fall into her mate’s strong arms, nuzzling her neck in search of the mate mark she made just the night before. She breathes easy for what feels like the first time since she last saw Vi.

A little ridiculous, since they just had breakfast together, but any moment away from her mate felt like a moment too long.

They’re newly mated, after all.

Vi purrs for her. Strong and steady, just like her mate. Caitlyn feels her rage towards her father melt into a soft grumble.

“I hate my father.”

Her father, ever absent and distant these days, chose this morning to acknowledge her, and, of course, he sees their mate marks. Caitlyn sent Vi upstairs with a kiss before her father had the chance to spew the most vile things about her mate.

He screamed and shrieked about her mating at all, how she’s too young to mate, and how she proved it true by choosing a trencher alpha. A trencher alpha with tattoos, piercings, and a criminal record.

The sister of her mother’s murderer.

How could she, he had asked. Had she no shame, no respect for her mother’s memory?

And what about the Kiramman legacy? Was she really going to taint her prestigious bloodline and bear mongrels?

What would her mother think, he had asked.

Caitlyn feels the tears come and she clings to Vi tighter with a whimper, so tight that she almost rips her mate’s enforcer uniform.

In the safety and warmth of Vi’s embrace, she cries. She cries for her mother, wishing she was still here. She cries for her father, wishing he’d once again be the sweet, caring man who had always been there for her.

And Vi. Oh, Vi. Her perfect alpha. Her perfect mate.

Vi, the only good left in her life, and she’s terrified, so, so terrified that her mate would slip through her fingers if she doesn’t hold on to her enough.

Vi, who wipes her tears. Vi, who reminds her what happiness feels like.

She doesn’t know what she’d do if she lost her.

“I’m sorry, Cait,” Vi says, and how she loves it when Vi calls her Cait, almost as much as she loves Vi. But not like this. Not when Vi is feeling like she’s a mistake. “I’m sorry I’m not better. I’m sorry I’m not someone else.”

Caitlyn puts a stop to it with a kiss, long and loving, until Vi is trembling and wanting in her hands.

“You are perfect, Vi,” she tells her mate, “and my mother would have loved you.”

Caitlyn sits up when she sees the sun start to rise. She tucks the banner away somewhere safe, wrapped in Vi’s red jacket.

She looks at her open window, and then heads for the bathroom.

She has to get ready for the day. She’s meeting with Ambessa soon.

Chapter Text

Jinx stares at Vi, blinking only because she has to, and even then, she’s afraid that her sister will be gone in a split second.

It’s morning, and Vi is finally, finally asleep, when the exhaustion had gotten too much even for the pain. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and Vi got tired because it just hurt too damn much. Jinx doesn’t know.

Vi hides the pain well. Too well. Like she’s used to it. Like she’s used to worse.

Did the enforcers beat her more if she showed how much it hurt?

Did they laugh at her, like they laughed at her in the streets last night?

Vi’s mind may not remember, but her body seems to, each scar with its own horror story to tell.

You should hunt down the rest of those enforcers.

Kill them, like those three.

Make them pay for what they did to Vi.

She’s your sister. You should protect her. You should avenge her.

You should. Because her mate won’t. Her mate hasn’t.

All this time, with power over the enforcers, and the pigs who hurt Vi are still walking around free. Still alive.

What kind of mate allows that?

Vi turns in her sleep, and Jinx can see her face now. She’s tense, like she’s having a bad dream. Like she’ll wake up any moment.

Vi is on the floor, covered in the blanket Jinx brought from her hideout. There’s no beds in The Drop, not since Silco took over and burned the ones in the basement. There’s a couch in the office, but Vi said it was uncomfortable. Too soft.

The floor is fine, Vi said, and Jinx knows what it means.

The floor is fine because that’s where Vi slept in Stillwater. On the floor, for seven years.

While you were sleeping on a soft bed, under warm covers.

While Silco, dear old dad, was braiding your hair, and you listened to him say, yes, Vi left you. Vi didn’t want you anymore.

Who’d ever want a jinx like you?

Vi stirs and reaches out, looking for something. Someone.

You know who.

Not you.

Not you. Not for long, nor ever again after.

Shut up, she almost says, but she doesn’t. She keeps quiet, for Vi’s sake. Vi needs to sleep. Vi needs to rest.

She tries.

She can see Vi’s mate mark. She tries not to, but she can’t look at anything else.

Why, she wishes she could ask Vi, why did you have to mate? And why her? Why her?

But that’s not it, is it? It’s not Vi’s fault.

It’s yours.

No.

Vi wanted to run away with you. Caitlyn would have been left behind. Forgotten.

Vi already chose you.

No. She chose Caitlyn. She always chose Caitlyn.

Then why are you still alive?

She chose you then, and she chose you again, even when she was already mated.

It’s your fault. It always is.

No. Shut up. Shut up.

You’ve fucked it up. You’ve jinxed it.

And she chose you again, but it’s too late.

You’re going to lose her.

Jinx.

I’m not. I’m not. Vi wouldn’t leave me. Not again.

She’s not yours to keep.

She’s Caitlyn’s mate.

Powder’s sister. Not yours.

Jinx.

That why you let Vi call you Powder?

To pretend?

To lie?

It’s not that. It’s not.

It feels real with Vi.

It feels right.

I feel like myself.

I feel perfect.

“Jinx.”

There’s a weight on her head. A hand, heavy but gentle.

She opens her eyes. She’s gasping. Her hands are in her hair, pulling and pulling and pulling. Her nails dig into her scalp, scraping and scraping until there’s blood.

The hand is gone. It moves to her shoulder and spins her around, stopping her. Then she’s pulled in. The arm around her is heavy. Gentle, like the hand

The scent. Alpha. Warm and comforting, like Vander used to be.

She’s being hugged, and it reminds her of Vander. Of how small but safe she felt. Of how he held her and said it’s okay, it’s okay, pup. It’ll be okay.

She looks up, and it’s not Vander looking down at her with a smile

It’s Sevika, frowning. Worried. About her.

Sevika doesn’t speak, and just keeps holding her. Her fingers, covered in blood, start to clutch at Sevika’s shirt. She curls her body, tucks herself more under the embrace that’s making her feel like a pup, but safe. And when Sevika purrs, quiet but comforting, protective and fatherly, she starts to cry.

Caitlyn stares at the map of Zaun on the board. It’s a new copy, a clean slate. The previous one, filled with angry, aimless lines and threads leading to nothing more than speculations of Jinx’s whereabouts, is now a crumpled ball in the waste bin, where it belongs.

The poster of Jinx, however, she keeps. It’s the same hunt, the same target, but with an additional perspective.

Where Jinx is, Vi will be.

And where Vi goes, Jinx goes.

Behind her, Ambessa is watching, waiting. Just Ambessa, like the night before. Rictus has made enough of a recovery to return to duty, but he’s standing outside the door, not beside Ambessa. The Noxian’s presence is smothering, yet, strangely, Caitlyn finds it comforting, knowing that, while she can’t get out, nothing and no one else can get in.

She lifts her hand, the pins held in her palm jostling. She puts a pin at Vander’s statue and at the fighting pits, and at the bar where Vi frequented to drink, points of interest that Ambessa is already familiar with.

She hesitates with the next pin, her eyes fixed on the building where Vi stayed, in that small room that only had space for her mate’s broken heart.

Would she ever find Vi there again?

And does she want Ambessa to know, if she does?

She glares at Jinx’s poster.

Where, she wants to demand, where are you hiding my mate?

“I see now, why Vi struggled,” Ambessa says, stepping forward but remaining behind her. “To choose between her mate and her sister? It’s a difficult choice for an alpha. Impossible, some would say. The instinct to protect is strong in alphas. Consuming and debilitating to some, when it’s left to fester, as evident in Vi. She believes her only purpose is to protect. A purpose she’s failed, many times. Her family. Her sister. You, Caitlyn. She’s lost everyone.”

Caitlyn clenches her free hand. She keeps glaring at Jinx’s poster.

“She hasn’t lost me,” she tells Ambessa. “I sought her out, but she refused me when I tried, every time I tried. She wouldn’t let me even touch her.” Her mate mark hurts when she says that, like it’s blaming her, punishing her. “I thought I’d get through to her, eventually, or, perhaps, she’d finally reciprocate,” she says, hoping her voice isn’t strained from the pain. “I thought I had a chance.”

Ambessa touches her shoulder. The weight of her hand is grounding.

“You still have that chance, Caitlyn. We just have to find Vi.”

“What happens then, if we find her?” she asks Ambessa, challenging her. “You’ve said it yourself, Vi can’t choose between me and her sister.”

Ambessa’s other hand touches her other shoulder.

If she closes her eyes, she could mistake the affection coming from her mother.

“Vi can’t live without you, her mate, Caitlyn. But she can live without her sister, a loss she can recover from and forgive, over time. The problem isn’t that there’s a choice to be made. It’s who gets to make it, and it cannot be Vi.”

Caitlyn turns away from Jinx’s poster and looks at the Zaun map, to the obscure, nameless building where Vi stayed.

Will Vi forgive her when she pulls the trigger?

Would Vi still love her?

She doesn’t know, only that she can’t stand the thought of Vi feeling the same pain she’s feeling. Her mate has suffered enough, at her hands, among many.

Including Jinx’s, she reminds herself.

Jinx, who claims to have saved Vi’s life.

And then there’s Ambessa, whose people lied to her about Vi being dead.

She walks forward, away from Ambessa’s reach, and she turns to face the Noxian. “Rictus and your soldiers, they lied to me about Vi,” she says. “Why did you want me to think my mate was dead?”

Ambessa frowns, not out of disappointment, but out of concern. “Because I wanted to spare you the horrific state she was in, Caitlyn.” She reaches out a hand, but Caitlyn takes a step back and keeps the distance between them. Ambessa nods, and continues to speak. “Yes, my soldiers were instructed to lie, but only about the blast leaving no trace of Vi. We believed, truly, that she had perished, that it was just a matter of time. No one, not even an alpha as resilient as yours, would have survived that blast. Even now, I have my doubts, but I believe you when you say she’s alive.”

In pieces, Caitlyn remembers Jinx screaming. Falling apart.

Wounds so grave not even shimmer could heal.

Unless…

She thinks of the color of Jinx’s eyes.

She always did wonder how Jinx survived that explosion at the bridge.

“What happened after the blast?” she asks Ambessa. “What really happened?”

“My soldiers witnessed an alpha with an augmented arm take your mate into the alleys. Their attempt to pursue her was short-lived. That arm of hers had unconventional functions that took even Rictus by surprise.”

Sevika, with a new arm made by Jinx.

Before the silence between her and Ambessa could settle, Rictus opens the door and enters. Maddie and Steb follow him inside.

“Commander. General,” both enforcers greet them.

“Officers,” she greets back. She sets the pins down. “What brings you here?”

“So sorry to intrude, Commander,” Maddie says, “but we’ve an urgent matter that requires your attention.”

“Go on.”

“An enforcer patrol failed to report in after their shift last night, Commander,” Steb says. “Their bodies were found this morning, on an abandoned boat near Stillwater Hold.”

“Do you think we’re just kidding ourselves, Lefty?”

It’s the first time Jinx speaks since Sevika carried her up the office. The first time either of them has spoken since, really. Sevika had cleaned the blood from her head and her hands, sat next to her on the couch, and then started smoking.

“About what?” Sevika asks, and if she sounds soft instead of annoyed, neither of them say anything about it.

“This big ol' revolution of yours,” she tells Sevika, and then she glances at the door. She wonders if Vi is still sleeping, if Vi would be there if she checked. “Me having my sister back,” she finally says.

Sevika frowns. “What’s going on? Did Vi try to go to that mate of hers?”

Jinx shakes her head. “No,” she says, and then quietly adds, “Not yet.”

“And what makes you think she will?”

“The mating bond is fucking with her head. It’s making her think her whole body hurts, and her mate mark hurts the most.” She growls thinking about it, how the mate mark seems to be the one part of Vi’s body that isn’t covered with scars. “It’s making her go to her mate,” she goes on about the mating bond. “To Caitlyn,” she just about spits out the name.

Sevika takes a long drag from her cigar. She exhales loudly, and then mutters, “What a nightmare. This is why we never mate. This is why.” She takes another drag. “Didn’t Vander nag you two about that?” Without waiting for an answer, she says, “But Vi’s still here, isn’t she? Even after you told her the truth. Sounds to me like she’s decided to fight the bond for you.”

Fight the bond. Fight the pain.

For her.

“Maybe,” she says. She sighs and leans on Sevika’s shoulder. “But for how long?” she wonders out loud. “What if she gets tired of fighting it? What if she doesn’t want to anymore?”

Sevika grunts. “You know we’re talking about Vi, right? When has she ever stopped fighting?”

Jinx smiles a little. “Never.”

“There you go,” Sevika says, and Jinx swears she’s also smiling, even if it’s not for long. “You know,” Sevika goes on after taking a drag, “this wouldn’t be a problem if you just killed her mate when you found her. A lot of other things would stop being problems if you did.”

“I’m glad I didn’t,” Jinx admits, frowning. “Who knows what it would have done to Vi if I did?”

“So, her mate’s off limits?” Sevika asks, not sounding happy. “We may be going to war. That might not be an option.”

“May not have to worry about her at all,” she says, staring at the smoke in front of her. “Should have seen her when I did, talking about how she didn’t care if I killed her, just that I let her see Vi first.”

“Shit.” Sevika grunts. “The bond’s made her that crazy already?”

“Either that or she's crazier than I gave her credit for.”

“Any more and she’d be worse than you.”

“Hah.”

Then it’s quiet, and Jinx finds herself wondering out loud again.

“Maybe there’s a way to get rid of the mate mark.”

“That damned bond is practically magic and pure evil,” Sevika grumbles. “If shimmer couldn’t get rid of it, doubt anything will.”

Jinx doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands up and says, “I’m going to check on Vi, see if she’s up.”

She sees that Vi is still sleeping. She sits down next to her on the floor. She can sense it, her sister’s pain, because she isn’t awake to hide it. Ever since Vi fell asleep, she’s been sensing it. It’s a little worse than it was earlier. Not by much, but it’s a sign, a reminder, that it’ll just keep getting worse from here on.

When Vi reaches out this time, Jinx catches her hand and holds on tight. Through it all, she never takes her eyes off the mate mark.

The enforcers’ bodies lay on the examination tables in Stillwater’s morgue. They’re still in uniform, including their masks, left as they were found. The uniforms are torn and ripped in some places, but are mostly in one piece, and they’re covered in graffiti, the color a bright, glaring red, just barely standing out against the blood stains.

The color choice is new, but the style and handwriting are unmistakable.

Jinx.

There’s a mouth drawn on each mask, a wide smile filled with sharp, jagged teeth.

A memory comes to mind, unbidden, and most certainly unwelcomed.

“Hold. Still! You’re gonna mess up the smile. Don’t you want to look pretty for my sister?”

The paint almost gets in her eyes.

Then another.

“Caitlyn. Caitlyn, Caitlyn, Caitlyn. I wonder how you smell to her.

Probably something sweet. Like cupcakes. Those were always her favorite.”

And another.

Her stitches split. The knife digs into her leg and twists.

“Why did you take her from me? Why?!”

“Commander.”

A hand touches her shoulder. She turns, fangs bared, a snarl in her throat, but she stops when she sees the flash of worry on Ambessa’s face. The Noxian is serious and professional the next moment, nodding towards the medical examiner Dr. Ozal, who respectfully pretended he didn’t just almost witness her snarling at Ambessa.

“Shall we proceed, Commander?”

She nods at Ambessa’s suggestion. She turns her attention to the rest of the graffiti, on the words painted on the enforcers’ uniforms.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO HER?

WHAT KIND OF MATE ARE YOU?

YOU’RE THE ONE WHO DOESN’T DESERVE HER.

“A personal message from Jinx,” Ambessa remarks, and she nods again.

“Yes. I confirm this is her handwriting. I know it well.”

“And the message?” Ambessa asks. “What do you make of it, Commander?”

“Hard to say,” Caitlyn admits. “Jinx has found me unworthy of Vi’s affections from the moment she met me.”

Can’t say I’ve proven her wrong, she would have added if she and Ambessa were alone.

She turns to Ozal and asks him, “These enforcers, Doctor. Their names?”

“Commander,” he acknowledges her, and then he reads out their names from the files he has on hand. “Mason, Sofia. Hendrix, Bruno. Ike, Dillon.”

She knows of them. They used to work closely with Marcus.

“Remove the masks, Doctor,” she instructs Ozal, and the man does, starting with Mason.

“Broken jaw,” he notes, and he continues with more caution. The mask comes off, and he gasps.

“Doctor?” she prompts.

“Her teeth,” he says. “They’re missing. All of them.”

Another memory comes to her, this time of Vi.

They’re spending the night at the Firelights’ den.

She wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Vi on the floor, awake and touching her jaw. Vi’s been doing that since they left Stillwater, she’s noticed.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, and Vi shakes her head. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Vi says, and, oddly, it sounds like that’s the problem.

It’s no coincidence.

The bodies turning up near Stillwater. 

The drawings on the masks. Sharp teeth. Fangs.

Officer Mason’s teeth gone. Pulled out.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO HER?

Caitlyn stalks out of the morgue, ignoring Ambessa, even when she starts to follow her. She goes outside, to the warden.

She sees the recognition in his eyes. He remembers who she is. Who she was, when she first went here.

“Commander,” he says. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, Warden,” she tells him. She glances at his cane, and she sees the fear in his eyes. “I’d like for you to join me.”

“For what, exactly, Commander?” he asks.

And she says, simply, “A chat.”

“The Firelights,” Jinx says, repeating what Vi just said, mostly because she can’t believe it. “You want to buddy up with the Firelights?”

This isn’t the conversation she’s expecting to have with her lunch.

Beside her, Sevika doesn’t say anything, but she has the decency to look at Vi like she’s lost her damn mind.

“Why not?” Vi asks back before taking a huge bite of fish, and then talks while chewing. “They’re Ekko’s pack, aren’t they? And Ekko used to be part of ours.”

Sevika grunts. “Don’t talk when your damn mouth’s full,” she snaps, and Vi does the opposite.

“I’m hungry!”

“Then shut up and eat first!”

“Ugh.” Vi rolls her eyes. “Fine. Dad.”

Jinx cackles when Sevika almost chokes on her food.

“I hate you brats so much,” Sevika wheezes, and Jinx keeps laughing while she pats her on the back.

“Yeah, yeah, we love you, too,” Jinx says, and Vi laughs with her.

“Little shits, both of you,” Sevika grumbles, snatching up a glass of water and downing it.

Vi finishes off her bowl before talking again. “So, Pow, what’s wrong with my Firelights idea?” she asks.

“Well, I don’t know if you remember what I told you, Sis, but they hate us. Both of us. Firelight killer.” She points at herself, and then points at Vi. “Bluebelly.”

Vi frowns. “Even Ekko?”

“Even Ekko. Especially Ekko,” she says, and then pauses to think about it. “Actually, that’s just what I hear, which probably means it’s coming from Scar, and he hates both of us, for sure. He’s the new Firelight pack lead, so, yeah, he’s not gonna go for it. Doesn’t help that you turned him into a punching bag that one time you fought.”

“Hah.” Sevika snorts in approval, making Vi grin. “Bet you did.”

“What happened to Ekko, anyway?” Vi asks.

Jinx shrugs. “No clue. You’d have to ask his pack.”

“Could be worth a try. Where’s their den?”

“No one knows,” Sevika answers. “It’s the only reason they’re still around.”

“You knew where the den was,” Jinx tells Vi. “Pretty sure that’s where Ekko took you and your mate after he crashed our happy little reunion. Ruined it, the asshole. Well, no, your mate ruined it first. By, you know, existing.”

“Last I heard, they’re trying to take people off the streets,” Sevika says. “Bound to run out of room and supplies, if they haven’t already.”

Jinx stops eating and turns when she hears a sound. Footsteps. A lot of them. Vi stands, also hearing it.

“Well, well, look at this. Vander and Silco’s lost little pups did run back home, after all.”

She knows that voice.

“Margot,” Sevika growls, and she stands in front of her and Vi.

Margot lets herself in, followed by over a dozen goons, but only three are hers. The rest are from Chross, and even from Smeech and Reni. One guy looks like he could be Finn’s, but she’s not sure.

“What are you, collecting flunkies of dead chem-barons?” she asks Margot. “Maybe get a hobby that’s more low maintenance.”

Margot smiles, but she’s not looking at her. She’s looking at Vi.

“Someone had to keep Zaun running after you two pups screwed everything up,” she says. “Why do you think there’s still shimmer to go around? At a premium, of course. Supply has been limited." Then she adds, "Your door’s broken, by the way.”

Vi scoffs. “Yeah, no shit. You see a welcome mat?” she growls. “No, so fuck off.”

Margot’s smile turns into a grin. “Vi,” she greets, and Jinx doesn’t like how she says her sister’s name. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got out of Stillwater? No, you’re not, because you don’t remember me, do you, love? I heard about you losing your memory, but I had to see for myself if it was true, and it is.”

“You had a double take the fall for you,” Sevika realizes, sounding a little impressed, but she doesn’t move. She stays between them and Margot. “What do you want?”

“Your pups have been causing Topside and the Noxians a bit of trouble lately, love,” Margot replies, looking at Jinx and then at Vi. “I was wondering if you’d like to keep causing them trouble, with my help. You’ll have my people and my resources at your disposal, no questions asked. But,” she says before any of them could react, “first I need to know, Vi: how does this work with your mate? You’re mated to a topsider, and not just any topsider. You’re mated to the bitch in charge of them. How do I know you won’t turn bluebelly on us again the second she smiles your way?”

Jinx looks at Vi, and she could have sworn that she flinches. She sees Vi’s hand twitching, and she knows it’s that cursed mate mark hurting.

Even then, she can’t sense that Vi’s in pain. All she’s getting out of her sister’s scent right now is anger.

And that’s not good, either.

But Vi stays calm enough. She looks Margot in the eye and she shrugs. “What makes you think she’d ever smile at me again?” she asks, scoffing. “She won’t. She threw me away.”

“And you, Vi?” Margot asks back. “Would you take her back, if she comes to you?”

Vi laughs like she just heard a bad joke.

“Why should I? I don’t even remember her.”

The warden’s cane is sturdy. It doesn’t break, unlike his nose.

“Tell me what you did,” Caitlyn whispers, harsh like her ragged breathing. “Tell me what you did to my mate. A pup, only sixteen when she was brought here. Did you touch her? Did. You. Touch. Her?”

“No! Never! Not like that, Commander, I swear. I swear! We just beat her, that’s all. Sheriff’s orders. These alphas, you know, you have to keep them in line, put them in their place before they forget it.”

“Just beat her?” she repeats, and though she doesn’t raise her voice, he cowers, and he whimpers. “How gracious of you, Warden.”

She doesn’t ask for his name.

He never cared to learn Vi’s.

“Please,” she tells him, and she bares her fangs, “allow me to return the favor.”

Again, the warden’s cane doesn’t break. His brow ridge does.

“She was dangerous!” he cries out. He pleads, and she stops.

For now.

“The reports. The real ones. I made copies before the sheriff had them burned. Thought it might come in handy if he tried to pin the whole thing on me. I can show you, Commander, and you’ll see what she did. Attacked without provocation. Beaten people to death. Thrown them off roofs. It’s all there. She was dangerous.”

She stares at the Warden. His bent nose. His shut eye. The cracked bones. The blood.

Her response is a question.

“To whom?”

He stops struggling against the restraints. He pretends he didn’t hear her.

“You say my mate was dangerous,” she reminds him. Then, she asks again, “To. Whom?”

His throat bobs. He’s sweating.

His silence is answer enough.

Vi was dangerous, but not to him.

Not to the guards.

Not to the enforcers.

“Their names. Give them to me,” she demands. She growls. “Tell me who they are. Tell me what they did.”

She considers breaking a finger for every name he gives.

But he doesn’t have enough fingers. He doesn’t have enough toes.

She settles for his jaw. The cane remains intact.

She leaves the room after that.

Outside, she paces. She snarls.

Calm down. She needs to calm down. She won’t go feral. She won’t.

She wants to remember this. Every second of it. She has to remember. Needs to.

Ambessa is watching. Ambessa has been watching, and Caitlyn doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. Not how it’ll look. Not what people will say. She doesn’t care.

All she cares about is Vi, and how she’s failed her.

How Jinx is right.

She knows what happened to Vi in Stillwater. Not in detail, until now, but she’s known. She’s seen her mate’s scars, has touched them and kissed them while making unspoken promises she ends up not keeping.

To protect Vi. To pay back every scar tenfold.

Instead, the warden remained at his station. The guards and the enforcers walk free, under her command. Vi had to see them. Vi had to work with them. And not once did she say anything about it.

Jinx is right.

What kind of mate is she?

Caitlyn shrugs Ambessa’s hand off her shoulder. She doesn’t need comfort. She doesn’t want it. What she needs is action.

“Did Officer Nolan get all those names, General?”

Ambessa nods.

“Bring them in. Every single one of them. Put them in the lower levels. The 40th,” she orders. “When I’m done here, General, we’ll discuss ideal locations for additional checkpoints in Zaun. More patrols, as well, with Noxian escorts.”

“Of course, Commander.”

She returns to the interrogation room, and she stays there until the warden’s cane finally breaks.

While Vi and Sevika clean up The Drop’s main floor and basement, Jinx spends the day working upstairs, making that new arm for Sevika. Time flies during it, when it’s quiet in her head and she can solve all her problems with her hands.

Vi shows up at some point, bringing snacks and juice.

“Don’t let Lefty in here,” she tells Vi, who gives her a one-armed hug. “I want it to be a surprise!”

“You got it, Pow.”

“I said you didn’t have to do this!” Sevika yells from downstairs. “The one you already made is fine, just fix that!”

“Shit, now you tell me!” she yells back. “Too late now, so you better love it!”

“It’s looking great, Pow,” Vi says. “Are you using parts from the bitch mittens?”

She smiles. Vi has that same curious look in her eyes that she used to when they were pups, when she’d ask about each design she’s scribbled in her notebook, wanting, genuinely, to listen to everything she had to say about each one.

“Sure am,” she answers Vi’s question. “There’s a lot of it to go around. Even the one that blew up is mostly in one piece. They got some really expensive and sturdy shit up there at Topside. If Lefty breaks this one, I'll cut her other arm off!”

“I heard that, you brat!”

“Good! Be more careful next time!”

“Last time wasn’t even my damn fault!”

Vi laughs. “She’s right, Pow. That was me.”

“I’m just trying to bond with her! This is the only way.”

“Yeah,” Vi agrees, still laughing. “It is.”

“I know what you’re saying, Vi! Get your ass down here. I can’t lift this with one hand.”

“That’s my cue,” Vi says, ruffling her hair. “The dip for those crackers is just how you like it, Pow, spicy and gross.”

“Gross?” she squawks. “You have no right to call anything gross when you drink cups of sugar!”

Vi makes a face. “I hate the smell.”

“You still made this for me, anyway!”

“The things I do for love,” Vi says, and it’s more a joke than anything, but Jinx grabs her hand as she’s leaving, and then throws herself at Vi when she turns back around. Vi reacts quickly, catching her and hugging her back. “What’s this for?”

“For being you,” Jinx answers, hugging Vi tight and purring to emphasize her gratitude. “For making me this gross sauce that I like. I know the smell of it makes your nose sting.”

Vi purrs back. “Anything for you, Pow.”

She doesn’t let go just yet after that. “Hey, Vi,” she whispers. “Are you okay? How’s the pain today? You’re hiding it.”

Vi is surprised, like she was last night when Jinx asked how she was. Like she’s not used to being asked.

“Sorry, Pow. I don’t mean to hide it,” Vi tells her. “It’s just a habit. I don’t even notice I do it. But I’m fine. I’m moving, I’m doing something, so it’s like it’s not even there.”

It’s the truth. It should be enough.

“Okay,” Jinx says, and she lets Vi go.

She takes a break and joins Vi and Sevika downstairs for dinner. They’re talking about The Drop, and what to do with it.

“The enforcers turn a blind eye to this place because they think it’s abandoned,” Sevika says. “We should let them keep thinking that. Maybe keep the front as is.”

Jinx snorts. “And let Madam Nut Face just waltz in here again?”

Sevika blinks at her. “Nut Face.”

“Yeah, Madam Nut Face,” she repeats, waving a hand in front of her own face. “The piercings on her forehead and chin look like nuts– not those kinds of nuts, you big, dumb alpha!” she snaps at Vi, but it’s no use. Vi just laughs even more. “Ugh, will you grow up?!”

“Me?” Vi says in between laughs. “You’re the one calling a woman Madam Nut Face!”

“It’s what you put a screw through!”

Vi is howling now, slapping the bar.

“Screw!”

“Vi, for fuck’s sake!”

Sevika clears her throat and covers her mouth with her hand.

“Your shoulders are shaking,” Jinx accuses Sevika, squinting at her. “You’re chuckling. Chuckling!”

Sevika shrugs, and doesn’t deny it. She’s actually smiling.

“Uncultured bastards,” Jinx mutters, rolling her eyes.

But she lets them have their fun.

“Because I’m the only adult in the room right now,” she says when she decides they’ve gotten it out of their systems. She gestures at the entrance of The Drop. “If we’re actually going to live here, don’t you think we should, I don’t know, have a front door we can lock? Then again, should we even live here? Madam Nut Face had a point. If anyone in Zaun would be looking for us, this is the first place they’d check.”

She glares at them both, daring either of them to start laughing again. Vi shakes her head, but she behaves, and Sevika nods.

“We just spent all day cleaning up this mess,” Vi says, kind of grumbling, “so we better fucking live here. We could board up the door and the windows and just use the back door. It’d make enforcers less suspicious since we won’t have people crowding out front.”

“Crowding?” Jinx repeats, frowning. “You think we should take up Madam Nut Face’s offer?”

“Why not?” Vi asks back. “You said the Firelights wouldn’t go for it. Margot’s happy to help, and she wants the same thing we want: getting Topside and the Noxians the fuck out of our territory.”

“Vi’s right,” Sevika says. “We can handle ourselves, but if we take a swing at Topside, they’re going to swing right back and they won’t care who they hit. We can’t protect everyone from that, not with just the three of us. We need to start getting organized because we can't do this alone. Topside isn’t going to be happy about those three enforcers, and they’re going to come looking for answers sooner or later.”

Jinx growls just thinking about them. She remembers what they said, and how they laughed.

“Their boss should be happy about it. We did her job for her. Some mate she is.”

Sevika grunts in agreement, but Vi shakes her head.

“She wouldn’t give a shit about that. Three of her own people were killed in Zaun last night. Now that, she’d give a shit about.”

My mate doesn’t care about me, is what Vi is saying, and Jinx can see that it’s bothering her. It’s bothering her, and she hates that it does.

Sevika gives Vi a pat on the shoulder.

“I’ll set up a meeting with Margot tomorrow.”

Jinx manages to eat most of dinner before they’re interrupted again.

“Um, hello? Can we come in?”

She sighs. “At least this one is polite. See, this is what I mean about staying here,” she tells Vi and Sevika.

She turns around and sees a woman with blue hair.

Blue, like hers, but dyed.

Great. One of those… Jinxers.

She shudders.

Hate that name.

“What’s wrong?” Vi asks the woman, standing up and welcoming her in. “Are you in trouble?”

“We’re okay,” the woman replies. “I’m Gert. My friends and I were doing our usual route, seeing if any more enforcer patrols are causing trouble. We found one sneaking around Babette’s and thought we should bring him here.”

Sevika stands. “What? No topsider is supposed to know Babette’s new place,” she growls, marching over. “Did he hurt anyone? Where is this pig? I’ll snap his neck.”

“Everyone’s fine,” Gert assures Sevika, who stops growling but keeps on scowling. “We got him before he could get in.”

She calls her friends over, and two of them enter, dragging with them a man who's been tied up and gagged. He’s still wearing his enforcer uniform. 

Jinx approaches, wanting a closer look at the man. His uniform barely has any armored padding and he has no mask.

This man isn’t part of an enforcer patrol. He’s stationed at Topside.

“So why’d you bring him here?” Jinx asks, and she immediately regrets it when Gert and her friends look at her with stupid, starry-eyed expressions. “Hey, focus,” she barks, snapping her fingers in front of Gert’s face. “You want me to kill him?”

The man shakes his head, his protests muffled by the gag.

“I’ll do it,” Sevika offers.

“Hold on, Lefty,” she says, giving Sevika a little push. “Let Gertie here answer the question first.”

“She called me Gertie,” the woman excitedly says to herself, and Jinx pretends she doesn’t hear it. “We were there last night when those three enforcers showed up,” Gert says, glancing at Vi.

Jinx nods. “And you think this asshole also hurt my sister when she was in Stillwater.”

“One more reason to kill him,” Sevika growls, dragging the man closer and then pulling his gag down. “Talk. How you die and how quickly depends on what you say.”

“I didn’t do anything!” he squeaks, sweating a disturbing amount. “Look, the commander’s lost her damn mind. One minute, we were all minding our business at the station, and the next, some people were being taken to Stillwater. Good people, all of them! When they called my name, I made a run for it. I was just looking for a place to lay low, I swear!”

Jinx raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one who sounds like you’ve lost your mind,” she says. “Why would the queen of the pigs put her own piglets in the slammer? And why would you hide here in Zaun? Makes no sense.”

“Only guilty men run,” Sevika mutters, glaring at the enforcer. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Vi steps in front of the man. He looks away. She gets in his line of sight again, and, again, he looks away. She grabs him by the shirt and pulls him up with no effort, despite him being twice her size.

“Were you one of them?” she asks. “At Stillwater?”

The enforcer opens his mouth to speak, probably to lie, and then he hangs his head. When he speaks, it’s quiet, but not quiet enough for alpha and omega hearing.

“I was just following orders.”

Jinx snarls, and the enforcer is on the floor the next second, his head bleeding. She looks at the blood on the butt of her pistol in disgust, but when she turns to Gert, she’s smiling.

“Thanks,” she tells the woman and her friends. “We’ll take it from here.”

“You did good,” Sevika says to them.

Gert, unlike her friends, lingers and goes to Vi, asking, “You okay?”

Vi nods, and even smiles. “I’m good. Thanks, Gert.”

It doesn’t take long to deal with the enforcer, to get him to talk. With the right encouragement, he’s telling them things they don’t even ask for.

Jinx leaves the enforcer in the basement with Sevika when he has nothing more to say. Besides, she doesn’t want to leave Vi alone for long. If the pig has more to say, Sevika will get it out of him eventually.

Vi is sitting at the bar, her food untouched. She’s staring at the emptied bottle racks.

Even from here, Jinx can sense it.

Vi is angry.

“Hey,” she says softly, but Vi doesn’t look her way, not even when she gets closer, when she’s standing right behind her. Just as softly, she hugs Vi, and she tries again. “Hey.”

Vi still doesn’t answer, and that’s okay. Jinx rests her chin on Vi's shoulder and she purrs. It takes a while, but it works. Vi’s shoulders relax, and she sighs.

“I should be doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Vi holds one of her hands, and she looks down. Jinx feels her shame.

“This. What you’re doing now. I’m an alpha, and I’m your big sister, Powder. I should be the one asking if you’re okay. The one taking care of you. Protecting you. Not the other way around. I shouldn’t even be saying any of this, fuck, what’s wrong with me? My problems aren’t yours to fix.” Vi lets go of her hand and laughs bitterly. “Pathetic. Pathetic alpha. I’m so fucking pathetic.”

Jinx hugs Vi tighter. “You’re not,” she says. “You’re not pathetic. Stop saying that, okay? No one thinks that, Vi.”

“Then why does everyone look at me like I’m some helpless pup? You. Sevika. Even Gert, and she just met me. Ever since you heard what happened to me in Stillwater, you’ve looked at me like I’m weak. I’m not. I can fight, and I want to. I want to fight, but none of you are even giving me a chance.”

Jinx reaches for Vi’s hand. She sees how clenched it is, sees the blood seeping from her palm.

“Stop,” she begs, but Vi doesn’t. Her nails dig deeper into her palm. She tries something else. “Do you know what that pig said?” she asks, talking about the enforcer. “He said they were all afraid of you. They had nightmares about you, Vi, because you never cried, not once, not even when you were just a pup. You never begged for mercy or asked them to stop. You didn’t even give them a whimper. You scared them because they thought you were unbreakable, and you are. You are so strong, Vi. No alpha lasts more than a few weeks in Stillwater, but you were there for seven years. Seven. Fucking. Years. And you did that for me.”

Vi’s fist stops shaking, and she lets her unfurl her fingers. 

“And the way we look at you, Vi,” she goes on, “it’s not pity. We’re pissed. I’m pissed. I’m pissed that these fucking topsiders put you in a box and hurt you over and over and over, and I didn’t even know. I wouldn’t have ever known if…” she pauses, regretting starting this sentence, but Vi deserves the truth, “if your mate hadn’t let you out.”

Vi scoffs, but her voice is small when she speaks.

“She probably wishes she never did.”

Jinx moves her chin a little higher up Vi’s shoulder. She smells it, Caityn’s scent mixed with Vi’s. She hates it. She hates it so much, and she wishes she could pretend it’s not there, that Vi could just be her sister again.

“I think,” Vi starts, and then stops.

Gently, Jinx holds her hand. The cuts have healed, but she’s still careful. “What is it?” she asks, and she wishes she doesn’t.

“I think I dream about her. I don’t know her face, or her voice, but there’s this... feeling. Like I’d know it’s her if she says my name, by how she says it. Like I know what it’s like to hold her, how she feels in my arms, how she smells, and I miss it. I miss her, and I don’t even know who she is.”

Jinx clings to Vi like it’s the last time she’ll get to do it. She closes her eyes, and she sighs before asking a question she’d rather not.

“Do you want to see her?”

The water is cold - freezing - but Caitlyn doesn’t even flinch under it. Her back is to the wall, not turned away from it, and her eyes are wide open and searching.

She’s still in uniform, the water taking a while to wash all the blood off it.

Her rifle is within easy reach. She feels too exposed otherwise. Vulnerable. Helpless.

Sometimes, she thinks there’s a pair of glowing pink eyes in the mirror.

Vi isn’t here to assure that it’s nothing. To hold her and tell her it’s okay to close her eyes.

Vi isn’t here.

And Caitlyn would be a fool to think what she did today would bring her back.

Empty gestures, she reminds herself. They’re nothing more than empty gestures, done too late. A selfish whim that has left Stillwater without a warden and many guards. Enforcers removed from their positions and posts without warning. And all she can think is:

Good riddance.

She’s not done. Not everyone in the list has been accounted for.

Some ran. Some hid.

But not for long.

She’ll hunt every single one of them down.

Caitlyn finishes her shower in a hurry, ever alert, and she’s soon pulling on her robe. She takes a small towel to dry her hair with, draping it on her shoulders for now, and grabs her rifle.

The less time she spends in the bathroom, the better.

She opens the door, and she sees it, by her bed.

Pink eyes in the dark. Glowing.

Then she smells it.

Shimmer.

Omega.

Jinx.

“You!”

She aims. She tries to, but there’s something - someone - grabs her rifle by the barrel and keeps it pointed down.

Red hair.

Alpha.

Hers.

“Vi?”

But her eyes. Pink.

How pale she is.

Her scent. Mixed with shimmer.

Like Jinx.

“Caitlyn.”

That gives her even more pause, not because Vi called her Caitlyn, but how she said it. Unfamiliar, as though she’s never said her name before. A guardedness, an edge to it that Caitlyn hasn’t heard since what feels like a lifetime ago.

“Vi, what–” she tries to ask, but Jinx is there now, between them.

Always between them.

Always in the way.

She snarls and bares her fangs. “You! What did you do to her?” she demands, and she attempts to swing at Jinx with her rifle, but Vi’s grip is strong, stronger than she remembers. “What sick game are you playing?”

Bringing Vi here, just to take her away again?

A brand of cruelty Jinx is certainly capable of, and one Caitlyn may very well deserve.

But Jinx is crazy if she thinks she’s leaving with Vi.

Jinx remains unnervingly quiet. She doesn’t even snarl back at her, but she can see it clearly in her eyes, and the feeling is mutual.

I hate you.

Vi is the one who answers her questions.

“Powder saved me, Caitlyn,” she says, and there it is again, that disquieting unfamiliarity. “I wanted to see you, and I asked her to be here.”

Her heart breaks, hearing that.

“You don’t trust me?”

Vi looks down, at her rifle, still held between them. Caitlyn remembers when they were in this exact position, and what happened after. She’s spent every night since agonizing over it.

The gemstone glows blue in the dark.

Blue and glowing, like the little cracks on Vi’s body.

Blue under Vi’s shirt, where her heart is.

Caitlyn lets go of her rifle. She doesn’t care when Jinx takes it. All she cares about is Vi, and how different she looks. How different she smells.

But under the shimmer, Vi still smells like her mate.

Vi is still hers.

And so this time, Caitlyn refuses to make another mistake by hesitating yet again.

She reaches out, now that her hands are free and Jinx has stepped back, and she touches Vi, gently grasping her forearm.

She holds her breath, waiting, dreading that Vi would growl and push her away.

Please, she silently begs, and she hopes Vi can feel how much she needs this, how it’d break her not to have it.

Vi moves, but not away from her. She takes one step forward and whispers, “Your hand is soft.”

Caitlyn almost falls to her knees. Almost sobs in relief.

Vi is here, and after seven long months, she’s finally letting her touch her.

“What happened to you, Vi?” she asks, and she slides her hand down to her wrist. She ignores the urge to undo the wraps so she can feel her mate’s bare skin underneath. “The rally,” she says, reminding herself as well. “What were you doing there? What were you thinking? I was so worried.”

Jinx scoffs. Caitlyn doesn’t even spare her a glance. Vi has all her attention, and rightfully so.

“Worried,” Vi repeats, like she can’t quite believe it, and before Caitlyn can ask, she shakes her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking at the rally,” she says, and when their eyes meet, Caitlyn’s chest feels tight. “I don’t remember.”

The way Vi is looking at her, as though she’s searching for something to recognize.

And she can’t find it.

“I don’t remember the last eight years, Caitlyn.”

Vi doesn’t remember.

Vi doesn’t remember her.

Caitlyn doesn’t respond. She doesn’t know how to.

She looks down, at her hand, and this is why, she realizes, this is why Vi allowed her touch, even welcomed it.

Because she doesn’t remember that she doesn’t want it. That she doesn’t want her.

Caitlyn’s first instinct is to lash out, and she does.

At Jinx.

“You did this!”

She lunges at Jinx. She would have, if not for Vi stepping in. Jinx is right in her face, snarling, aiming her own rifle at her, before Vi gently pushes them away from each other. She doesn’t push back against Vi, but she glares and snarls back at Jinx.

“It was the shimmer, Caitlyn,” Vi says, and that makes them both quiet down. “Powder had to use shimmer to save me. I don’t know the details, but I was dying— I was dead, and she had to inject the shimmer in my blood to bring me back. It worked. It fixed me up, but when I woke up, the last thing I could remember was Powder’s eleventh birthday.”

“Dead,” Caitlyn whispers, and her mate mark hurts twice as much in protest. “I thought she was lying when she said that,” she tells Vi, not even glancing at Jinx. “You were dead,” she dares to repeat, and this time, the pain is too much and she flinches. She pushes the towel around her neck out of her way and touches her mate mark.

“Caitlyn?”

Vi’s concern - her kindness, her heart - is wounding.

How could Vi feel anything but hate for her?

How could Vi care, after every awful thing Jinx must have said about her?

Hold me, please, Caitlyn wants to ask Vi. She wants to beg, but she can’t.

She can’t.

But it turns out she doesn’t have to, because Vi hugs her, and oh, the warmth, the strong arms. Vi isn’t quite sure how to hold her, where her hands should go, but it doesn’t matter. Caitlyn clings, desperately, afraid that Vi would disappear when she opens her eyes, that this isn’t real, but then Vi breathes in her scent and starts purring, that same deep, comforting purr that she used to fall asleep to, and Caitlyn can no longer hold back to tears.

She buries her face in Vi’s neck and cries, whimpering her mate’s name again and again.

And, for a moment, the pain goes away.

“Stay,” she says when her sobs have subsided. It sounds like a demand, and maybe it is. She clutches the back of Vi’s neck, the tips of fingers grazing her mate mark, and she feels a primal satisfaction when she sees there’s still not even the slightest scratch on it. “You don’t have to forgive me tonight, Vi. Not tomorrow, or the week after, or even for years. Just stay, and give me a chance.” 

Vi tries to say no. Caitlyn gives her a reason not to.

“Caitlyn, I don’t remember you. You’re my mate, but I don’t know who you are.”

“Then get to know me.”

“I can’t just stay here. We’re at war.”

“There isn’t a war yet, and there doesn’t have to be.”

“You’d call it off? End martial law. Just for me?”

“Yes.”

“And my sister? What happens to her?”

For that, Caitlyn has no answer. Not one Vi would like.

For Vi, she’d end a war. Or start one, if she’d have to.

But Jinx?

“She has too much to answer for,” she says, and Vi has already slipped out of her arms before she even finishes her sentence. She doesn’t hide how much that hurts - can’t, even if she wants to - but Vi continues to move away from her. “My mother,” she presses, more for herself than anything. “Councilor Bolbok, Councilor Hoskel. The attack on the memorial.”

Vi is now standing in front of Jinx, and speaking for her.

“That wasn’t her. She wasn’t the one behind the attack.”

“Is that what she told you?” Caitlyn challenges. She glares at Jinx and holds on to the hate she feels. It’s all she has, now that Vi is out of reach. “Has she told you everything she’s done?”

“Yes. Everything,” Vi says, and, for the first time, her pink eyes soften. “I know what she did to you, Caitlyn. I know she took you. I know she hurt you. She told me about it, and about your mother.”

Then why, Caitlyn wants to ask, why are you still on her side?

But Vi has more to say.

“I know I was a bad mate, that I must have said something stupid like I’d let you kill my own sister, or that I’d do it myself. I’m sorry I made you believe it. I’m sorry if it’s the reason you mated me. I wish I could take it back.”

“That was not the reason I mated you,” Caitlyn snaps, and it startles both her and Vi, but she couldn’t help it.

There’s something about the way Vi is talking about herself.

Like she’s talking about someone else.

Someone who doesn’t exist anymore, and it makes Caitlyn feel like she can’t breathe.

“Is it so hard to believe I wanted to make you mine because I love you?” she asks Vi.

Vi walks up to her, stops at arm’s length, and begins to circle her, steps slow and measured. Caitlyn sees it now, the difference, how Vi moves with a confidence, almost an arrogance, that she didn’t used to. Her shoulders squared. Her head held high. Her eyes fierce and intense.

A proud alpha, and it’s a sight to behold because this handsome alpha is hers.

“You left me,” Vi finally says.

“And then I went looking for you,” she says back, holding Vi’s gaze whenever she passes in front of her. “I didn’t do it soon enough, and I did it for selfish reasons, wrong reasons, but since then, I’ve tried to make things right. I didn’t try enough, in hindsight. If I had, then it wouldn’t have come to this.”

“You wanted me back?” Vi asks. “Weren’t you just using me because you kept throwing me away after?”

It’s not an accusation. Vi sounds too withdrawn for it to be.

It hurts, all the same.

“I’m sure that’s what it looked like,” she tells Vi, and she glares at Jinx, who shrugs at her. She tries not to scowl and returns her attention to her mate. “You and I are the only ones who truly know what happened between us, Vi.”

“So, it’s just you now.”

“Yes,” she agrees with Vi. “So why not hear me out? Listen to my side of things, as you’ve listened to your sister’s. I am your mate, Vi. Don’t I deserve at least that?”

Seeing Vi’s eyes soften again, Caitlyn reaches out, touching her arm.

Vi stops. She looks at her hand, and then looks at her.

“The first time I sought you out, I wanted to stay,” she says, seven months too late. “Every time after that, when you would come here, I wanted to ask you to stay. I was too much of a coward to say it. I’ve hurt you, Vi. So much. Too much. And I was afraid that if I were to say one more wrong thing, you’d never come back. I didn’t want to lose you. Not again.”

She moves her hand, first to Vi’s side, and then to her lower belly, the same spot she struck with her rifle.

“I’ve made many mistakes, and I have just as many regrets,” she goes on, her fingertips grazing that spot, “but you are neither, Vi.” She moves her hand, this time to Vi’s face. She sees the scar cutting through the tattoo, and she frowns, knowing it’s from her.

Vi doesn’t speak, but then she wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close. Closer, until she feels Vi’s muscles flexing under her clothes. Closer, until she feels Vi’s breath on her lips. Closer, until Vi’s forehead rests against hers.

Caitlyn feels her mate’s warmth, and she feels her mate’s pain and agony when she does speak.

“Your mark.”

She feels the sting of tears when she hears how Vi’s voice breaks. She knows how much it hurts Vi to see her mate mark like this, so ugly and scarred.

“I know, darling. I know,” she whispers, holding Vi’s face with both hands now and keeping her close. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Vi lets out a ragged breath, and just when Caitlyn fears she’s pushed too much, Vi leans into her touch and nuzzles her hand.

But then her eyes open, and Caitlyn sees the pain in them.

When Vi says a name, it’s not hers.

“Powder. Get me out of here.”

It happens fast, before Caitlyn can react.

A flash of pink.

A smoke bomb.

And Vi is gone.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn rushes to her window and out of it. This, what she’s doing, what she’s about to do, it’s likely in vain, but still, she does it. Maybe, she thinks, maybe she’ll catch up to them. Jinx is fast. Superhuman, when those damned pink eyes of hers glow, but she can’t have gone far, not with Vi.

Not if Vi changes her mind.

Because Caitlyn isn’t imagining what she saw in Vi’s eyes. Vi didn’t want to go. Vi didn’t want to leave her.

It hurt Vi to leave. She knows it. She swears she can feel it.

That’s why Jinx was there. To take Vi away. To keep them apart.

Caitlyn checks the estate, the grounds first and then the roof. She scales it with speed and ease, just like Vi taught her, and there it is, the faint, fading smell of shimmer. She follows it. She chases it.

She runs.

She remembers the last time she’s done this, with Vi running next to her. It’s something they’d do after a long day on the job, a moment where Caitlyn allows herself a fleeting respite from the weight of the Kiramman name and the void left by her mother. Where she gets to be someone she wants to be: Caitlyn. Just Caitlyn. Cait, to Vi, and her mate.

She loves watching Vi soar over the rooftops. Often, she stands back just to take in the breathtaking sight.

It’s the only time, she realizes now, that Vi is free. Free from the invisible prison she’ll retreat into once the moment passes. Free from the burden and the guilt of creating a monster that’s always been there, and that there’s no putting it back now that it’s out. Free from thinking it’s all her fault.

Free from Jinx.

Free from her.

Caitlyn runs faster. She gets fresh cuts and bruises on her bare feet as soon as they heal.

Eventually, she loses the trail, and she loses her way. She doesn’t know which happens first, only that now, she’s standing between a bathysphere and a ledge overlooking Zaun.

There’s no way, she thinks - she knows - that Vi took this route back to Zaun. Not here, where they stood a lifetime ago, still strangers who didn’t know each other’s names. Not here, where she took a leap of faith and came out of it hopelessly, madly in love with an alpha whose heart was too good for someone like her.

This place means nothing to Vi now.

She doesn’t remember it.

She doesn’t remember her.

Caitlyn thinks of jumping, just as Vi did before. It’ll be certain death if she does. She has nothing to hide her face with, no weapon to defend herself with. Angry Zaunites will find her before she can even start looking for Vi.

She thinks of Vi. Of pink eyes, not gray.

“I don’t know who you are.”

“I was a bad mate.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wish I could take it back.”

“Your mark.”

“Powder. Get me out of here.”

Out. Away. From her.

Vi doesn’t remember her.

Vi doesn’t want her.

Her mate mark hurts, and so does the rest of her body. The pain is back, and it feels even worse. It hurts as much as she misses Vi. As much as she needs Vi.

One of the enforcers guarding the bathysphere finally stops pretending he doesn’t see her. “Commander?” he asks with the caution of a man approaching a wild animal, and he’s not wrong to do it.

Because how strange this must be to him, his superior wandering the streets in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, her feet a bloody mess? All this, on the same day she has enforcers thrown into Stillwater with no explanation why.

Still, the enforcer tries to do his job. “Do you need help, Commander?” he asks. “An escort back to your estate, maybe?”

She looks at him. He’s new, though about twice her age. He speaks with a concern she was once familiar with, that of a worried father. Likely, he has children, perhaps a daughter who’s just as young. She doesn’t know his name. There was a time when that would bother her, when she’d care to know every single person she’s working with.

“Thank you, Officer,” she tells him, “but I can manage by myself. Good night.”

She goes on her way, and the enforcer has the good sense to leave her be.

When she makes it back to the estate, her father is hovering over her before she crosses the gates. He asks where she’s been, what she’s done, and what she’s thinking. She answers none of his questions, but she lets him tend to the wounds on her feet. To humor him, because there’s nothing to treat once the dirt and the dried blood is cleaned off.

After that, she goes to her room, closing the door in her father’s face and all his questions. It doesn’t take long before he gives up and goes away.

She walks to her bed, past her rifle, still on the floor, and she sits.

She spends the rest of the night looking out the window.

Jinx is exhausted. She’s never done this before, keeping up this speed and for this long, and she’s taking Vi with her. Omegas, like alphas, are strong, able to lift twice their weight like it’s nothing, but Vi feels heavier and heavier the longer she runs.

Vi’s been telling her to stop. Just get out, is what Vi told her when they agreed to go Topside. Just get out, far enough away where that stupid, evil bond can’t fuck with Vi’s head anymore. Where the stink of her mate’s scent can’t hook its claws in and trap her again.

But she doesn’t stop. She can’t.

Caitlyn might catch up to them.

Vi might change her mind.

They’re almost at Zaun when Vi makes her stop, and then catches her when she trips. She gets right back up and grabs Vi. Her hands shake when she does, and her grip on Vi’s shirt is weak. The word is spinning and blurry, but Vi is perfectly clear.

“Powder, it’s fine—”

“No, it’s not! It’s not fine!” she yells. She screams. She’s been quiet, like she’d promised, even if Vi never asked her to be. She’s been quiet, kept her mouth shut while Caitlyn talked and talked, but not now. Not anymore. She has to be loud. Louder than the voices, so Vi can hear her. “We need to get out of here. Now. Now! She’s going to take you away again. She can’t! I won’t let her! I won’t lose you again. I can’t.” Her voice breaks when Vi touches her face and wipes her tears.

“I’m here, Powder. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” Vi says, and even if it’s almost a whisper, her voice makes all the rest quiet. “I’m not leaving you. Not for anything. Not for anyone.”

She clutches Vi’s hand with both of hers, keeps it pressed to her cheek and nuzzles it. It’s real, like the rest of Vi. Like the promise Vi’s just made for her.

“I want to go home,” she tells Vi.

Vi carries her the rest of the way back to Zaun. She falls asleep along the way, leaning on the same shoulder that’s been stained with Caitlyn’s tears.

When Jinx wakes up, she’s in The Last Drop’s basement, on a mattress that’s exactly where her and Vi’s bunk bed used to be. Vi is sitting beside her, smiling down at her.

“Hey, Pow. How you feeling?”

“Hungry,” she says, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and her growling stomach agrees with her.

Vi laughs and ruffles her hair. “Figured you’d be. You ran from Topside to Zaun in the blink of an eye, and with me weighing you down.”

That can’t be right.

She wasn’t going that fast.

Was she?

“Stay here,” Vi tells her. “I’ll warm up your food.” Then she looks at Sevika, who’s standing over them, and says, “It was my idea.”

“Like hell it was,” Sevika growls.

Vi frowns. “Don’t yell at her.”

“I’m yelling at her. Go.”

Vi hesitates, but Jinx pats her on the leg. “It’s okay, Sis,” she says, and she grins at Sevika. “Lefty’s just being a good papa.”

Sevika scowls, but doesn’t take the bait.

Vi’s about to protest when Jinx’s stomach growls again.

“Food’s not going to warm and serve itself, Vi,” Sevika says.

Vi sighs. “Yeah.” She squeezes Jinx’s hand. “I’ll be back, Pow.”

Jinx nods. She holds on to Vi’s hand until she slips out of reach, and then she watches her disappear up the stairs. She and Sevika wait, neither of them speaking just yet. Jinx spends the silence looking around, seeing what’s there and what isn’t.

The basement’s been cleaned up. There’s no sign or trace of the enforcer who had been bleeding and pissing all over himself while Sevika beat answers out of him. She almost wonders where he is now, what Sevika had done with him after, but she can’t find a single fuck to give, as long as he suffered.

She’s glad the stench of him hasn’t stuck to the floor and the walls. Vi may not remember what she went through in Stillwater, but she doesn’t need any part or piece of that enforcer in the same room she’ll be sleeping in.

The mattress, Jinx realizes, is from her hideout. The truth is, it’s Vi’s. It’s one of two things she asked Silco to let her keep from their room before he burned all the rest. The other is Stitches, the stuffed bunny Vi gave to her. It’s also here with her now, sitting by her pillow.

“Vi brought that along when she saw it at your place,” Sevika says. “Thought maybe you’d like to have it around.”

Jinx takes Stitches in her hands. The two holes on its shoulders have been patched up, the ones she made when she once angrily nailed Stitches to the wall and kept it hanging there for years.

She touches the new stitches. She doesn’t need to ask Sevika to know it’s Vi’s doing.

Sevika shakes her head, and Jinx knows what that means.

Here comes a scolding.

“That was a stupid, stupid thing you did.”

Jinx flinches at the tone. For someone who hates being called papa and all the implications that come with it, Sevika is pulling off the disappointed dad voice a little too well.

“What if the Noxians were there?” Sevika goes on. “What if you got caught?”

Jinx fiddles with Stitches’ paws. “I’d be dead,” she says, and she shrugs. “Hextech bullet right between the eyes, courtesy of my sister’s crazy mate.”

“You think you’d be that lucky?” Sevika asks, her voice is starting to rise. She’s starting to growl. “You know what they did to your sister in Stillwater. What do you think they’d do to you? You have topsider blood on your hands that Vi never did. Councilor blood. Kiramman blood. And what about Vi? We just talked about the bond messing with her head, and what do you do? You bring her to her mate and hand her over! Why do you keep pushing her away? How many more of these tests are you going to put her through until you’re convinced she’s here to stay for good?”

“It’s not a test!” she snaps, and Sevika snaps right back.

“Then what are you doing to your sister? Did you stop and think what it’d be like for her?”

She thinks of Vi, the look on her face when Caitlyn touches her hand. She thinks of Vi rushing to hold Caitlyn when she starts crying, and how easily Caitlyn fits in her arms, like she belongs there. She thinks of Vi nuzzling Caitlyn’s hand and closing her eyes like she’s finally found her way back home.

But Vi chooses her instead.

“Vi deserves the truth. All of it,” she tells Sevika. “Even from her. It’s only fair.”

Sevika scoffs. “Fair? They’re mated. Nothing about this is fair.”

Jinx stares at Stitches. She frowns when she notices that she’s already ruined what Vi just fixed.

“How was she?” she asks, and she finally looks at Sevika. She sees the worry, the concern. The care. She almost looks away. “When she brought me back here,” she says about Vi, “how was she?”

Vi seems fine. She’s smiling. She’s laughing.

She’s in pain. She has to be, after being taken away from her mate.

Sevika glances at the stairs, as if making sure that Vi isn’t just there, listening. “All Vi cared about was you,” Sevika says. “Wanted you to be comfortable. Wanted you to have something good to eat when you woke up. She went to your place, and I stayed here to keep an eye on you.”

Jinx tenses. “You let her go alone?” Her hands twitch, and she puts Stitches down before there’s nothing left to put back together. “You should have gone with her!” she growls. “Why didn’t you?”

Sevika doesn’t growl back. Doesn’t even scowl or make a face at her. “Because I trusted her to come back,” she tells her, “and so should you."

Jinx shakes her head. “Vi shouldn’t be alone,” she whispers, and she’s not talking to Sevika.

“She’s not a pup, Jinx, and we shouldn’t treat her like one,” Sevika says.

“She thinks she’s sixteen.”

“Don’t think it works like that. And even if it did, you know she grew up long before that.”

Jinx huffs, but she doesn’t argue. Sevika is right.

Everyone, even Vander - especially Vander - expected Vi to act like a grown alpha the day she protected her, Mylo, and Claggor from an enforcer patrol.

Vi was thirteen when that happened.

“Here with you, or there with her. Vi’s made her choice, and it’s you,” Sevika tells her. “Just like last time, it’s you, and she shouldn’t have to keep proving it to you.”

“She shouldn’t,” Jinx agrees. She takes something from her pocket and shows it to Sevika.

The gemstone.

From Caitlyn’s rifle.

“It was Vi’s idea,” she answers the question before Sevika can ask it. “Careful there, Lefty. You’re about to smile like a proud papa.”

“Hah,” is all Sevika says, and she smiles anyway.

Vi comes back shortly after that. Jinx’s stomach growls when she smells the food. It’s the spicy stew she loves. Sevika drags a box over to put the food on and helps Vi serve it. Jinx starts wolfing down the soup as soon her bowl is filled.

“Hope you didn’t yell at Powder too much,” Vi says to Sevika while they’re eating.

Jinx sighs dramatically and leans on Vi. “She did something worse than that,” she whines.

“What?”

“She parented me!”

Sevika snorts. “Eat your food, you brat.”

“See, Vi, she’s doing it again!”

Vi laughs and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “She’s right, Pow. Eat up, and if this isn’t enough, don’t worry. There’s more where it came from.”

More where it came from. She remembers Vi saying that a lot when they were pups.

Back then, it meant Vi didn’t eat so she could.

“Yeah, we’re still going through all the free food we got last night,” Sevika says, and the reminder makes Jinx relax.

She keeps eating, still leaning on Vi.

Then she notices it, and she wishes she’s imagining it.

The smell of alcohol and blood on Vi.

—

“Hey.”

Caitlyn opens her eyes and sees Vi looking at her. It’s the middle of the night, and though the greeting is soft and sweet, like her mate, she frowns. There’s no sleep in Vi’s voice.

Her mate has been up a while.

She lifts her head from Vi’s chest to her shoulder. “Nightmare?” she asks, gently touching her face and brushing a thumb against her cheek.

She knows Vi has them, the nightmares. She talks in her sleep. Often, it’s Powder’s name she says. Sometimes, it’s Mylo and Claggor. Vander. Dad.

Mom.

Vi nuzzles her hand, and almost kisses her palm before hesitating. Caitlyn frowns. Mated for a month now, and Vi still acts like she can’t just touch and kiss her whenever she wants, as if Caitlyn doesn’t want it herself. As if she wouldn’t lean into every touch and ask for one more kiss, and another, and another, until they’re trying to make their way to bed and fail halfway.

But it’s fine. It will be.

Caitlyn will spend the rest of her life making Vi realize she’s a good alpha. A good mate. Perfect.

Vi finally kisses her palm, but only after she encourages it by caressing her cheek. “No nightmare,” she tells her. “Just thinking. Did I wake you?”

Caitlyn nods. “You stopped purring,” she says. She slides her thumb across Vi’s lower lip. “It’s become something of a lullaby for me.”

When spared from nightmares, Vi purrs in her sleep, a wonderful discovery Caitlyn made shortly after they mated. Caitlyn loves it. A strong and steady deep rumble she finds comforting because it suits her mate so well.

Not since losing her mother has she been able to sleep like she does in Vi’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Vi says, and she gets that look in her eyes that Caitlyn hates to see. Doubting her worth, questioning it. Thinking that she has let her down, failed her, and fearing she’d lose her over it.

That she’d leave her.

Never. Caitlyn makes a silent promise. She’d never leave Vi.

“What were you thinking about?” she asks. She moves her hand lower, pausing to properly admire and appreciate the mate mark - her mate mark - on Vi’s neck, and then further down, until her palm is resting on Vi’s chest, just over her heart.

Vi covers her hand with her own. “I was thinking about…” she trails off, and she looks away. “After.”

After. Caitlyn knows what it means.

After.

After Jinx is dealt with.

She doesn’t say anything. She waits instead. If Vi wants to say more, she’ll listen. If Vi wants to stay quiet, they’ll cuddle until they fall back asleep.

Vi looks at her. “I’m sorry, Cait,” she says, and before Caitlyn can ask what for and say there’s nothing to apologize for, she goes on. “I shouldn’t have refused the first time you asked me to put on the badge. I shouldn’t have left you. Not then, and not after the council meeting. Not ever. You saved me, you believed in me, and you chose me. I won’t fuck this up. I promise. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Caitlyn tugs their joint hands close and kisses the back of Vi’s hand. Kisses each scar there. “I know,” she whispers. “I know, darling.”

There’s so much she wants to say, to talk to Vi about. How the estate is Vi’s as much as it is hers, along with everything in it. How Vi doesn’t have to be afraid to walk around the mansion without her, to go to the library and sit down to read all the books she’s been eyeing. How Vi can go to the kitchen and cook something for her, like she’s been wanting.

What it means to be mates - what it will mean - when they finally find the time and space to just be.

The Kiramman name. Legacy.

And maybe it’s her omega instincts or the mating bond, or perhaps both, but Caitlyn can’t help but think that Vi would be a wonderful father.

Someday. One day.

After, she thinks. She reminds herself.

After. They can talk about everything, and the future.

In Vi’s arms, Caitlyn falls back asleep to the soothing deep rumble of her purr.

It’s barely sunrise when Caitlyn hears the voices outside her door. Her father and Ambessa, whispering about her, and perfectly clear to her omega hearing.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry about this, General. I know I’ve already asked so much from you, but I didn’t know what else to do. She won’t talk to me. She won’t let herself grieve. She’s out there, running around the city in nothing but her bathrobe, for goodness’ sake—”

“I understand, Dr. Kiramman. I’ll have a word with her. It’d be my pleasure.”

“I… thank you, General. You don’t know how much this means to me To her, really. She listens to you. I think you remind her of her mother. Cassandra always did know how to handle Caitlyn and that omega temper of hers better than I.”

Her father knocks on her door.

“Caitlyn, are you awake? General Medarda is here. I’ve asked her to speak with you.”

She doesn’t answer, but her father still lets himself in. She sighs. A mistake, she thinks, to let him keep a copy of her bedroom key.

“I’d like to be alone, Father,” she tells him, without sparing him a glance. She keeps her gaze on her open window when she addresses Ambessa. “I apologize for wasting your time, General.”

She knows what he’s thinking. She hasn’t changed out of her bathrobe. Hasn’t moved all night. Hasn’t slept. Just thinking, endlessly, of Vi and of the sweet little moments they had as mates, even if they were lying to themselves and making promises they couldn’t keep.

Should her father ask, she’ll refuse to change. Her bathrobe smells like Vi, her mate’s scent having clung to it when she hugged her.

Vi’s shirt smells like her. She wonders what Vi has done with it.

“Caitlyn—”

“Allow me, Doctor.”

It takes no more than that for her father to leave her with Ambessa. When he closes the door behind him, Caitlyn repeats herself.

“I’d like to be alone, General,” she tells Ambessa. She tries to ignore the pain in her body. The pain in her mate mark. “Please, leave.”

Ambessa approaches instead. Caitlyn doesn’t look at her.

“Your father still thinks your mate is gone. You haven’t told him, Caitlyn?”

What difference would it make, she thinks, because her father will still hand her over to Ambessa the first chance he gets, like now.

“Your rifle. The gemstone is missing.”

Jinx.

Of course.

Does Vi know?

Was it Vi’s idea?

Ambessa’s hand is heavy on her shoulder.

“Talk to me, my girl. What happened?”

My girl.

Her mother used to call her that.

She doesn’t answer. She keeps looking at the open window.

She can’t do this. She can’t play Ambessa’s games right now.

She misses her mother. She wishes she were here, so they could go to the gardens, even if they’ve been ruined by Jinx.

She wishes that Mel is instead the Medarda whose hand is on her shoulder. They’d spent little time together before Mel disappeared, but the older omega had been doting and caring in a way that was genuine. Like an older sister.

She wishes for Jayce. For her big brother. She wonders, yet again, what happened to him. How he died.

How did Mel? They’re gone, both of them, lost on the same day.

The same day she lost Vi. Left her behind.

She thinks of Vi’s eyes. How the beautiful grays were filled with tears.

She thinks of those same eyes turning cold and pink with shimmer.

Ambessa mercifully withdraws her hand and the weight that comes with it. Then she walks away, towards the door, and when Caitlyn hears it open, she thinks she can finally breathe, but Ambessa comes back.

“Copies of the Stillwater reports from the former warden,” Ambessa says, and that, finally, makes Caitlyn look.

She sees the massive stack of folders Ambessa is holding. There, in every page, is a glimpse of Vi’s years in Stillwater. Just a glimpse, and from a perspective Caitlyn can’t trust, but it’s all she has. These are stories Vi can no longer tell her, even if she wants to.

“I admit, curiosity got the better of me,” Ambessa goes on, and places the folders on her desk. She takes the one at the very top and opens it. “An escape attempt shortly after she was brought to Stillwater. She had an injured arm, sustained before incarceration. She strangled an enforcer with her own cuffs, and it took two more of them to put her in her cell.”

She takes the folder when Ambessa hands it to her. It’s Vi’s record, almost like the one she found before. No name. No crime. But this one has a picture. Even in black and white, Caitlyn can see the fire in Vi’s eyes.

So young. Vi is so young in the picture. 

The little alpha is baring her teeth, showing fangs. Small fangs. A pup’s fangs.

There, on a separate page, is a note in the warden’s handwriting:

First chat with 516.

Mason extracted the fangs after. Took her time with both sets. Wanted to make it hurt after that stunt with the cuffs.

Strange. I’ve seen grown alphas cry from that.

Ambessa continues to talk, confirming some of things the warden has said, and revealing others he hasn’t.

Inmates using improvised weapons on Vi and her keeping them as trophies after. A concealed blade, spiked knuckles, and a sock with nails, among others.

Vi, in turn, using nothing but her bare hands.

Inmate 248 and Inmate 430 not responding to stimuli.

Inmate 982 with multiple bone fractures.

Inmate 227’s right eye barely hanging from its socket.

Interrogation attempts on Vi resulting in no information, instead unsettling the guards and enforcers.

Frightening them.

I’m convinced 516 is some kind of monster, the warden writes in one of his notes, a page from a different folder, near the bottom. She has to be. No alpha has lasted this long in Stillwater, let alone one who laughs after an enforcer has pulled the trigger several times. That laugh haunts me in my dreams sometimes.

Break her, but keep her alive, are the sheriff’s specific instructions.

Alive? Yes. Some close calls here and there, but, yes. Alive.

Broken? No. Not even a little, after all these years. Something is holding her together, but I can’t think of a force in Runeterra strong enough to do that.

Love. The kind of love that’s indestructible, like Vi.

A love that turned out to be for the wrong person.

A mistake Vi has made twice now.

Caitlyn finds another picture of Vi in the same folder. A grown alpha is staring right at the camera with the same fire in her eyes. No fangs are bared this time, and while Caitlyn likes to think it’s because Vi’s dangerous glare is more than enough, the more likely, sickening truth is Vi had no fangs to bare when this picture was taken.

“To not only endure Stillwater’s particular, cruel treatment of alphas, but to thrive in it? To have her own captors fear her,” Ambessa says, and she gestures at the stack of folders as though they’re an assortment of accolades and not the compiled, organized collection of documented nightmares they are. “Your mate is nothing short of remarkable, Caitlyn. I’m eager to become acquainted with her when we find her.”

Caitlyn stares at Vi’s picture. She brushes her thumb over her mate’s face tattoo. Still whole, in the picture, before she ruined it.

“She won’t come back,” she says to herself, but Ambessa hears it. “She doesn’t want me.”

Ambessa’s hand is on her shoulder again. She should push it away. Shrug it off. Tell Ambessa, one more time, to please, please leave her alone.

She can’t do this.

She has nothing, no one left.

“My girl, she is your mate,” Ambessa says about Vi. “She wants you. She needs you.”

Caitlyn shakes her head. She looks at Vi’s picture, imagining pink eyes instead of gray, and she whispers, “She doesn’t remember me.”

Ambessa is thankfully silent, though not for long.

“How do you know this?”

Caitlyn doesn’t answer, not until Ambessa gently squeezes her shoulder. It’s something her mother used to do.

“Vi told me,” she says, and she looks at the very spot in her room where her mate had been standing. “Her memories of the last eight years. Gone. Forgotten.”

Including her.

Especially her.

“Your mate. She was here?” Ambessa asks, and then asks the same question that’s been haunting her since. “And you let her go?”

Caitlyn flinches. Her mate mark hurts. Everything hurts.

“I tried,” she says, and she touches her mate mark. She remembers how Vi had looked at it, and how it felt like she’d broken her mate’s heart all over again. “I tried,” she repeats, and she thinks of Vi slipping out of her arms, backing away from her and looking at her like she was a stranger. “Vi didn’t stay. Not for me.”

“Even knowing that you shouldn’t further prolong your separation? That it would eventually kill you both?” Ambessa asks, and realizes the answer. “She doesn’t know. Why didn’t you tell her, Caitlyn?”

It takes another squeeze on her shoulder to make her speak.

“I didn’t want to force her,” she says, and the rest, she keeps to herself.

I wanted her to choose me.

Ambessa sighs, and Caitlyn can tell she’s frowning. “A noble sentiment. Romantic, even,” the Noxian remarks, “but is it worth your life? Is it worth hers?”

She looks at Vi’s picture. Realizes that her trembling hands have almost torn it. She starts to set aside - away from her, safe from her - but Ambessa stops her.

“Do you remember what I said about alphas, Caitlyn?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for a response. “Alphas have a strong instinct to protect, as we’ve seen in your mate. Do you know the equivalent for omegas?”

Ambessa lifts her chin. Lifts her gaze and meets it.

“Omegas are driven by the instinct to persevere, no matter how daunting and impossible the odds may be. To never give up or give in. To never, ever stop fighting. For their families. For their mates. For themselves. Trust in this instinct, my girl, and don’t deny it or your mating bond any longer. Vi is your alpha, your mate. She belongs to you, and no one, not even her sister, will get in the way of that.”

Jinx finishes tying the big ribbon when she hears the door open. Seeing that it’s Sevika, she uses her shimmer speed to hide the newly wrapped present under the desk by the time Sevika steps into the office.

“We’re meeting Margot in about an hour,” Sevika says.

She groans at the reminder and sags against the chair. “I forgot about that. Do we really have to go?”

“You don’t have to,” Sevika corrects, “but you know Vi will, with or without you.”

Jinx frowns, and when she stays quiet for too long, Sevika approaches and sits on the chair across from her.

“What’s bothering you?” Sevika asks.

She sighs. “Something doesn’t feel right about it,” she says, “Vi wanting to work with someone like that. Vander wouldn’t have.”

Silco would have. Silco did.

“Can’t exactly be picky when you’re about to go to war,” Sevika points out.

She sighs again. “Yeah,” is all she says, not in the mood to argue about something she doesn’t care about. She spins in the chair, once, twice, and then asks Sevika, “What’s Vi doing? Is she downstairs?”

“I sent her to Babette’s to take it easy before we go.”

Jinx slams her foot down, stopping the chair from spinning. “You did what?”

“I sent her to Babette’s,” Sevika repeats, looking at her like she’s the weirdo. “What?”

“You sent my sister to a fuckhouse?”

“I wanted her to have a nice–”

“I take it all back, you’re a terrible father.”

“It’s also a bath house!”

“Where people still fuck!”

“Will you stop fixating on the fucking?”

“Why? That’s all you do there!”

“Listen, you little–” Sevika growls, and then stops. She takes a deep breath and then says, calmly, “There’s no bathroom here at The Drop, not one you can actually take a bath in. They have these big tubs at Babette’s, and they actually have hot water. I thought a nice, warm bath would help her relax after the kind of night she had.”

Jinx blinks, and she also stops growling.

“And I haven’t forgotten how mating works,” Sevika goes on. “I know there’s only one omega for Vi, now and for the rest of her life, and she’s all the way up at Topside. That’s something to live with, not something to force or fix because there’s no doing either. If you’re worried about Babette’s omegas getting funny ideas, that’s what the mate mark is for. Your sister is off limits to anyone but her mate, and she smells like it.”

“What about the betas?” Jinx asks, squinting at Sevika. 

“They know better, and I asked Babette to keep an eye on her.”

Jinx huffs. “Fine,” she relents. “That was… nice. What you did for Vi.”

Sevika shrugs and lights a cigar. “Didn’t think your protective instincts would kick in over your sister’s virtue, of all things,” she teases, smirking. “You know it’s too late for that, right? It’s been too late for, what, almost a year now?”

“Ugh. Shut up.”

Sevika laughs and takes a drag. “So, you coming?”

“Hm.” Jinx spins in the chair one more time before answering. “Are you really gonna let me ditch? I thought I was some kind of symbol.”

“You are,” Sevika says, speaking with a patience and fatherly affection they both pretend not to notice, “and if it were up to me, I want Margot to see both you and Vi there, but I also think it’d be good for you to see that Vi can handle this and that you don’t need to babysit her all the time.”

Jinx sighs. “You sure about that, Lefty? she asks, and Sevika frowns.

“What do you mean?”

She looks at the desk, at the tools, the papers, and hextech gauntlet parts and pieces scattered on it. There, sitting on the edge, is Stitches. Vi’s fixed it up again, not even asking why she had to in the first place. Telling her it’s okay before she could even say sorry.

She takes Stitches and puts it on her lap. “Vi smelled like booze and blood last night,” she tells Sevika. “Tried to hide it, so I didn’t notice until I was close enough.”

Sevika puts out the cigar. She’s frowning, looking like she doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or worried. “Her shirt,” she suddenly blurts out like she realized something. “She changed it. I thought it was because she just didn’t want her mate’s scent on her.” She shakes her head, muttering something about being an idiot for not figuring it out. “What’d she say when you brought it up?”

Jinx looks down. Stares at Stitches. “I haven’t talked to her about it yet,” she admits.

Sevika nods and stands, and Jinx fights the instinct to flinch. Here comes another scolding, she thinks, but instead Sevika places a hand on her head. She looks up, confused, because it’s the sort of thing Vander used to do when he wanted to comfort and reassure her.

“I’ll talk to her later,” Sevika says. “Margot first, and then I’ll ask around, see if anyone saw or heard anything while she was out last night.”

She blinks, surprised when she feels tears. “Why is she lying to me?” she asks, and Sevika gives her a gentle pat on the head.

“Don’t think of it that way. Think about Vi, and how she must be feeling after seeing her mate and having to walk away from her. That couldn’t have been an easy thing to do, and the mating bond must be driving her crazy. How about this: you can yell at her about lying after I yell at her about the drinking.”

Sevika ruffles her hair and it makes her laugh a little. She leans on Sevika, wipes her tears, and says, “You got yourself a deal, Lefty.”

“Good.” She doesn’t see it, but she can tell Sevika is smiling. “I need to head out. Door’s fixed so don’t forget to lock it if you don’t want people barging in.”

She grabs Sevika’s arm. “Wait. I’m going.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” She places Stitches back on the desk and reaches for the present she’s been hiding. “I wanna see the look on Margot’s face when you show up with this.”

“Is this…?” Sevika starts to ask, and she nods.

“I had a whole grand surprise planned out,” she says, “but no way am I gonna let a chem-baron call you a funny-looking rat again.”

“Smeech said that.”

Jinx rolls her eyes. “Would it kill you to just say thank you, Lefty?”

Sevika laughs and takes the gift. “Thanks, you brat. You really didn’t have to.” She opens it, taking care not to tear the ribbon, and Jinx smiles to herself when Sevika gasps. It’s the new arm she’s been working on. “This looks just like the one I had before. How? Did you design that one, too?”

She shrugs. “Nah, but I had a good enough look at it before you tossed it. Here, let me help,” she says, standing up and taking the arm.

“It’s made from the gauntlets,” Sevika notices, and she nods.

“Sure is. Those bitch mittens were good for something. Who knew? Should be Vi-proof now, too. And I get rid of the lame Piltie blue paint.”

The arm clicks into place, and Sevika rolls her shoulder. She stretches it, bends it, and wriggles each finger. She sees the slots on the shoulder and grins. “You remembered I liked those,” she says.

“And the fingers,” Jinx points out. “How’s it feel? Heavy, right?”

Sevika grunts, and agrees, “A lot heavier than the one you made.”

“Hold still,” she says, and she pops open a chamber on the forearm. “No, this isn’t for shimmer,” she tells Sevika before she could ask, and she reaches into her pocket.

“A gemstone?”

Jinx grins. “What, you think it looks like hextech for the hell of it? I didn’t carve all those runes on it for fun. Well, not just for fun,” she says, placing the gemstone in the chamber and then closing it. The hextech arm glows briefly when the gemstone hums to life, and she holds Sevika steady when she almost stumbles, expecting it. “Arm feel lighter?” she asks anyway, even if she knows it does.

Sevika nods. “Much. Feels almost… normal. Like it’s actually a part of me.” She moves the arm around again, closing and opening her fist, the movements looking natural, and then she reaches out to ruffle her hair.

Jinx doesn’t need to hear another thank you. Sevika’s happy purr says it all.

“Come on,” Sevika says with a smile. “Let’s get Vi and go to that meeting.”

She snorts. “Oh, yeah, let’s pick up my mated sister from the fuckhouse.”

“Bath house.”

“Same thing.”

“That reminds me, don’t call Margot Madam Nut Face when we’re there.”

“Why? Because you’ll laugh like you did last time?”

“Hah. Smartass.”

To Sevika’s credit, she’s right about the bath house section at Babette’s. It’s far enough away from the stink of sex and every ungodly sound that comes with it. They find Vi in a private, restricted room, talking to Babette while lounging in a massive tub.

Vi’s face lights up when she sees her. “Pow! This is amazing. The water is warm and it smells good. Have you tried it?” she asks, already reaching for her when she gets close. “C’mere.”

Jinx laughs and playfully swats Vi’s hand away with one of her braids. “Nope. See these?” she says, grabbing her other braid. “Gonna a bitch to dry and do ‘em back up.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Vi agrees, and then she smiles. “Maybe next time?”

“Maybe,” she relents, and she blinks, noticing that Vi keeps looking at her. Keeps smiling at her. “What?”

“It just hit me. You look so much like Mom.”

“Oh,” she says, and when she remembers they’re not alone, she snorts. “You sure picked a shitty time to be sappy, Sis.”

Vi laughs. “Sorry. I’ll get out of here and get dressed.”

She hands Vi a towel and goes outside with Sevika and Babette.

“Any trouble?” Sevika asks Babette, who shakes her head.

“Not at all. Vi is a guest here, and I made sure that’s known by staff and clients alike. Many of us were at the rally, and I’m not about to let anyone forget who saved us from the Noxians,” Babette tells Sevika, and then looks at her. “Hello, Jinx. It’s nice to finally see you again.”

Jinx isn’t sure how to react to that.

The last time she saw Babette was at The Drop.

When Vander was still alive.

“How’s Vi?” she asks Babette.

“Vi is fine, considering,” Babette says, and doesn’t need to explain what that means. “She’s strong. Always has been, ever since she was a pup. Still, I worry. I’ve lived for a very long time, and I’ve never known mated alphas and omegas to separate.”

“Can’t be helped,” Sevika says, and Babette nods.

“No, I suppose not,” she concedes, and then turns to leave, but not before looking at Jinx. “Vi is welcome here anytime, and so are you, Jinx. It really is good to see you,” she says, and her smile turns a little sad. “Vi is right, you know. You do look like your mother.”

The door opens shortly and Vi walks out, pulling on her jacket. She notices Sevika’s arm and grins. “Pow, you finished it!” she cheers, wrapping an arm around her and hugging her. “Looks great. How’s it feel?” she asks Sevika, who smirks.

“Feels like I can kick your ass even more now.”

“Wanna see how wrong you are?”

“Hey,” Jinx barks at them. “We’re going to see Madam Nut Face and her circus crew, remember?”

Vi snickers. “Nut Face.”

Sevika sighs and reaches for a cigar to light, muttering, “Just get it out of your system before we get there, you brats.”

The Baron Tower, the only place in Zaun that’s been built high enough to give access to the same clean air the topsiders get to breathe for free. Jinx has only been here once, when she was sixteen, and Silco must have winded up thinking it was one time too many because he never brought her back.

To this day, she’d insist that she did Smeech a favor when she blew up his limbs.

The Tower looks a lot different than the last time she’s seen it. A dirty, confusing mess, like the sort of people Margot has surrounded herself with.

And Margot? Margot is sitting in Silco’s chair.

Jinx doesn’t like that.

“Well, hello there, pups,” Margot greets them, and she says pups with a familiarity and affection she’s done nothing to earn, and will never deserve. “Sevika, love, that new arm is gorgeous. Your handiwork, is it, Jinx? And do my eyes deceive me, or is that hextech? Well, I expected nothing less from the Pride of Zaun.”

Jinx snorts. “Pride?” She spits. “You chem-barons were fighting over who got to sell me to Topside, and don’t think I didn’t see your circus show here betting on Vi to die in the pit.” She glares at the gaggle of goons surrounding Margot, and all of them take a step back.

“We were wrong,” Margot admits a little too easily for Jinx’s liking, “and here we are, trying to make things right. Please, sit. Sevika, I believe you’d like that one.”

Smeech’s seat.

“Or perhaps this one?”

Finn’s.

Sevika scoffs and takes a different seat. Chross’.

Margot smiles. “Interesting choice.”

“Or maybe you’re overthinking it, lady,” Jinx says, scoffing like Sevika did. She then takes Margot’s seat, all the while looking her in the eye.

Margot just keeps smiling and motions at another chair. “That one is Reni’s,” she tells Vi. “You don’t remember, but you and a councilor friend of yours killed her young, defenseless son. Poor old girl. She was never the same after, really.”

Jinx glances at Sevika, silently asking if it’s true. Sevika doesn’t nod or shake her head. Jinx watches Vi. She can’t see or sense anger or frustration from her sister.

She can’t sense anything, really.

Vi is completely closed off. Has been since they got back from Topside.

Since Caitlyn.

Vi sits on Reni’s chair. Legs spread. Relaxed. “Reni,” she repeats the name. “That the one who led the attack on the memorial?” she asks Margot.

“Yes. To avenge her son.”

Vi’s only reaction to it is to raise an eyebrow. “And you didn’t help her?”

“None of us did, really,” Margot says with an exaggeratingly delicate shrug. “We thought she didn’t need it, what with the Noxians at her side.”

Jinx looks at Sevika again, and again, Sevika has no answer, looking just as confused. Any Zaunite who was part of the attack was either dead like Reni or rotting in Stillwater.

Vi scoffs. “The Noxians were helping her?”

“Hard to believe, is it?” Margot agrees. “But I trust what Reni’s people have told me. Besides, it doesn’t matter now. Reni is dead, and we have Noxians and enforcers walking around Zaun like they own it. It’s about time we Zaunites get our bite back, and who better to lead the way than Vander and Silco’s prodigies? You’re certainly off to a good start. Three dead enforcers two nights ago, and one more last night.” 

“And what have you done?” Vi asks. “The feral alphas and omegas attacking the checkpoints. Are you behind that? Because it’s pointless. Stupid. You’re just getting your people thrown in Stillwater for nothing.”

“Says the alpha who saved the rally while feral on shimmer.”

Jinx bares her fangs. “Something she died from,” she reminds Margot, and then growls, “so don’t joke about it again unless you want more holes in your face.”

Margot immediately raises her hands. “I apologize. I wasn’t joking. Far from it, actually. Alphas and omegas were using shimmer to fight back against the topsiders and the Noxians well before the rally. Now, after what Vi did, even more of them will do it,” she explains, and it makes enough sense that Jinx stops growling. “Can’t say I don’t see the appeal,” Margot goes on. “Shimmer just makes you alphas and omegas feral. It doesn’t turn you into grotesque, pitiful creatures like it does with us betas.”

“It’s a gamble, not an appeal,” Sevika points out. “A feral alpha or omega only recognizes family, and can’t tell Zaunite apart from topsider or Noxian.”

“It’s also bad for business,” Margot adds. “Can’t have repeat customers if they get themselves caught and put in prison. So, to answer your question, Vi: no, I’m not siccing feral alphas and omegas at the topsiders and the Noxians. In fact, my people have specific instructions to overcharge blue-haired buyers. Somehow, though, these alphas and omegas are getting their hands on shimmer, but it’s not from me. Someone out there is sitting on a supply big enough to give it away for free, and I want it.”

Jinx rolls her eyes. “Not what we’re here for.”

“Noxian scouts have been seen all over Zaun recently,” Sevika says, “and I think it’s because Topside is looking to set up more checkpoints.”

“I see. What do you think we should do about it? Margot asks.

“Nothing. Let them do it,” Vi declares, and the way she speaks, the way she looks, no one dares to protest. “The Noxians like to start shit? Fine. We let them spread thin, and then hit them before they hit us. Three checkpoints at a time, far away from each other, and we make sure they know who’s doing it. Sevika. Me. And Powder. They see our faces. The rest of your people will handle the patrols, keep them out of Zaunite homes and refuges.”

“And if that’s not enough to get the topsiders and Noxians out of Zaun?” Margot challenges.

“Then we go to Topside,” Vi answers calmly, coldly, “and we remind them that the memorial and the gardens were just the beginning.”

“I grew up preparing myself for something like this,” Vi tells her when they get home.

A successful mission, considering. The last two chem-barons, Chross and Margot, now in Stillwater, their operations halted and seized, and their shimmer supplies purged.

Vi has been quiet since the arrests. Quiet on the way back to the city. Back to the estate. Back to their room. It’s only when they put their weapons down does Vi finally speak.

Caitlyn turns to face her mate. She finishes loosening her hair and her collar and she approaches the bed, where Vi is sitting, still fully clothed in her enforcer uniform. Caitlyn kneels between her mate’s spread legs and reaches up, carefully sliding the goggles off and then laying them on the bed. She knows they’re for sentiment, not function.

She takes one of Vi’s hands next, slowly undoing the wraps. “Something like this?” she asks, prompting her mate to continue.

“This,” Vi says, clenching her free hand into a fist. “Fighting. The first time I was on that bridge, I was a small pup. Helpless. Useless. When Vander carried us away, I made a promise that the next time I go back on the bridge, I’d be strong. That I wouldn’t let any topsider get in my way. I wanted Powder to have a good life. Better than I had. And I was willing to fight for it.”

Caitlyn pauses. She’s halfway done removing the wraps. “Was?”

Vi nods. “Vander made me realize that I could lose the people I’d be fighting for. That I could lose Powder.” She sighs. “What good would a happy future be if she wasn’t there to live it?”

Caitlyn frees Vi’s fingers and intertwines them with her own. She brushes her thumb over her mate’s scarred knuckles. “This is why you insisted that I stop the invasion,” she realizes, and Vi nods again.

“No one wins in war. I thought I lost you once before, Cait. I’m not going to lose you again.”

Caitlyn stands. She holds Vi close, caresses her cheek, and then her mate mark. “You won’t,” she promises.

When Caitlyn comes to, the first thing she sees are her bloody hands. She’s breathing hard, and her throat hurts, like she’s been snarling far too much and far too long.

She’s in the interrogation room. In Stillwater. The chair is spotless, its restraints unused, unlike the walls, stained with blood, and the floor, the three bodies strewn on it.

No. Not bodies. She can hear them breathing. Alive. Unconscious.

Enforcers. Formerly. Three of many who hurt Vi. Tortured her, and laughed about it.

The door opens and Ambessa enters. “Perhaps that’s enough for today, my girl,” she says, and guides her to sit on the pristine chair. “You can’t do your mate proper justice if you’re feral, and you owe it to yourself to be present when you punish her tormentors.”

She watches Rictus walk in and gather all three unconscious enforcers by himself. He nods at Ambessa and leaves.

Caitlyn remembers now. Why she’s here. To finish what she’d started. To make sure every single enforcer and Stillwater guard who hurt Vi will pay for what they’d done to her.

Even if Vi doesn’t remember. It’s to show, Ambessa had said, to prove to Vi that she’ll be safe when she comes back home. Back to her. A promise that Caitlyn can and will protect Vi and take care of her this time. That she’ll be a good mate, one Vi deserves.

“The names on the list,” she tells Ambessa, “not everyone is accounted for. If I can’t continue here, then I’ll continue the hunt.”

She starts to stand, but Ambessa eases her back down.

“The hunt can wait another day as well, Caitlyn,” Ambessa says, and she squeezes her shoulder. “The abruptness of your feral episode is unusual. What is the last thing you remember?”

Caitlyn snarls. She grips the arms of the chair, crushing them. “Dela Yane confessed to suggesting the use of firearms on my mate during her ruts.”

Target practice, they called it in the reports. They kept score. Made a game of it.

Ambessa squeezes her shoulder again, and it calms her enough to stop snarling.

“It’s no wonder, then, why you went feral, Caitlyn.” Ambessa frowns. “Still, I’m concerned. You were perfectly calm before it happened. I fear the displeased mating bond had a hand in this. How is the pain?”

She shakes her head, and simply says, “Manageable.”

“Your tenacity is admirable, my girl,” Ambessa praises her, yet she frowns again. “However, you haven’t slept. You haven’t eaten. You must take care of yourself, for your sake and Vi’s.”

She nods. “For Vi,” she agrees.

Ambessa smiles. “Yes, and I will handle your duties for today. I’ve already sent out scouts to find ideal locations for new checkpoints, and I have Rictus coordinating with your enforcer patrols to improve current routes, as well as draft new ones. And worry not, of course. As commander, you have the final say in all this.”

Caitlyn relaxes at that. She had been about to protest. “I want that list of names fully crossed out before I consider further advances into Zaun,” she reminds Ambessa.

“I understand, Caitlyn, but do consider that your prey could be hiding in Zaun, and these advances may aid in your hunt.” Then, without waiting for a response, Ambessa says, “Come. Let’s get you home. I’m sure your father is worried about you.”

They walk outside. It looks to be noon.

While waiting for the transport back to the city, Maddie approaches her.

“Excuse me, Commander. I hope I’m not being too forward, but I overheard the general say that you haven’t had anything to eat all day, and I have these,” she says, and she holds out a small, sealed package. “You can help yourself, if you’d like. I have plenty.”

Spicy dried meat. An Ionian snack.

Caitlyn is about to reject the offer when Ambessa gently encourages her otherwise.

“Something to tide you over until you can have a proper meal.”

“Yes,” she agrees, and she takes the package from Maddie. “Thank you, Officer Nolan.”

Maddie smiles. “The pleasure is all mine, Commander.”

She takes a bite, and she suddenly feels the gnawing hunger she’s been ignoring. Her stomach growls, loud enough that Ambessa and Maddie, betas they may be, likely hear it. She barely stops herself from wolfing down the rest. She manages, instead, to just have one strip of dried meat for now.

“Officer Nolan,” she says. “I’d like to also thank you for processing the Stillwater reports overnight.”

Maddie’s smile widens. She nods eagerly. “Of course, Commander. I knew it was important to you.” She frowns, and she whispers, “It’s awful, what Vi went through here in Stillwater. Some of those reports had me in tears. I can’t imagine how it must have been for her.” Then, speaking louder, she asks, “She’d be welcomed back, wouldn’t she, Commander? Despite what she did at the rally?”

The transport arrives, and as its doors open, Caitlyn answers with a statement.

“Vi is my alpha, Officer Nolan. My mate. She belongs with me.”

It’s a long day for Jinx. They spend most of the day at The Tower with Margot. Talking. Planning. It’s boring. Jinx doesn’t care, but she stays, and she listens. For Vi.

She notices something. When Vi speaks, everyone pays attention, hangs on to every word.

It reminds her of the days when Vi would draw a crowd when she was training. Pups as young as her and Ekko, and even some grown alphas and omegas, would watch. Everyone back then, including her, looked at Vi like they were looking at the next Vander.

Margot and her people look at Vi the same way.

When they finally leave The Tower, Vi asks Sevika to spar, wanting to see what the hextech arm can do.

Jinx has a good laugh when they find out she installed a small laser cannon on it, and she joins them after that.

Back home, she and Vi draw on Sevika’s arm, and Sevika pretends to hate it.

After dinner, Vi and Sevika continue to fix up the rest of The Drop. Jinx goes up to the office and gets started on sketching gauntlet designs for Vi. She leaves the door open while she works because she likes that she could hear Vi and Sevika downstairs.

She’s drawn pages worth of designs when she hears Sevika calling out to Vi.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. Why? We’re done for the night, aren’t we?”

Sevika sighs and asks again, “Where are you going, Vi?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if you’re going to end up in a fight. Or drunk.”

Vi doesn’t respond, but Jinx does hear a low growl.

“What’d you do last night when you were out?”

“I didn’t start it.”

“Not like you to be bothered by trash talk.”

Vi snarls, so loud and sudden that it startles Jinx.

“No one talks about my mate that way. No one!”

Jinx stands up and exits the office. Vi sees her approaching and stops snarling, but she keeps glaring at Sevika, who crosses her arms but doesn’t glare or growl back.

“Was that before or after you got drunk?” Sevika asks Vi.

“I didn’t get drunk,” Vi snaps. “I ran into Gert and her friends and they gave me a drink. One drink. No shimmer. That’s it. That’s all I had.” Vi looks at Jinx, her expression and voice turning soft. “And nothing happened, okay, Pow? I didn’t go feral. I was fine.”

Jinx frowns. “Why did you try to hide it? And don’t tell me it’s because you didn’t want to upset me. You’ve already done that by lying.”

Vi flinches and looks away. “I’m sorry, Pow.”

“Are you going to do it again?” Sevika asks.

Vi looks at Sevika, and then looks at her, this time able to look her in the eye. “I’m going to Babette’s, and I’m going to have a drink,” she says. “It calms me down. It helps with the pain. It stops me from doing something really stupid, and I just need one. I’m sorry I lied to you, Powder.”

Vi leaves, and Jinx lets her.

Something really stupid. She knows what that means.

The mating bond. It’s making Vi go back to Caitlyn. To her mate. It’s demanding, and she can’t fight it. Not by herself. Not anymore. Not after seeing her mate. Hearing her voice. Holding her. Scenting her. Knowing her mate loves her and wants her back.

And Jinx only has herself to blame for it.

Hours later, Vi still isn’t back. Jinx goes to Babette’s, and Babette isn’t surprised to see her.

“Where’s Vi?” she asks.

“Same room,” Babette says. “She asked to be left alone.”

“Is she drinking?”

“She has a bottle of our best wine.”

Jinx growls. That’s more than one drink.

“Is it spiked with shimmer?”

“No. We haven’t served shimmer since we relocated.”

Jinx nods, and then makes her way to the bath house side. Babette calls off the guards when they try to stop her. She makes it to the private room Vi is in, but stops when she hears a sound from the other side of the door.

Vi is laughing.

“What? No, I didn’t get blood on that shirt! It smells like you. I wouldn’t ruin it like that.”

Caitlyn.

Caitlyn is in there with Vi.

Caitlyn is going to take Vi away.

Jinx opens the door so forcefully that it almost breaks, but Vi doesn’t look at her. Vi doesn’t even notice her. She’s in the tub, fully clothed, bottle in hand. She’s laughing.

And she’s alone.

“Vi?” she calls out, but Vi doesn’t respond.

She approaches the tub and goes around it so she could see Vi’s face. Vi is smiling now, but not at her, and when speaks, she’s not talking to her.

“Cait. Did I call you that, before? Did you like it?”

Vi takes a long swig from the bottle. Her eyes glow one, two, three, four seconds after.

But she’s not feral.

She’s high.