On sunny days, I go out walking
I end up on a tree-lined street
I look up at the gaps of sunlight
I miss you more than anything
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I get a bit of sleep after hovering over the medic's shoulder with a clenched fist for the duration of his visit. He gave her some kind of Shimmer variant, probably something like what Caitlyn got for me when I was stabbed, and she's been shot up with the real stuff recently if her eyes are anything to go by, so he figures she'll wake up in the next couple days and be fine as long as I keep the gash on her head clean. I should be relieved, and I am, but at the same time, I've realized I'm not at all prepared to handle a conscious Powder.
In the morning, someone knocks on the door and I launch to my feet with my fists up. It turns out to just be Ekko. He's brought food and water, and he goes to hold Powder up so I can try to give her a drink without me even asking. We don't say anything until we've gotten a whole cup into her.
I wasn't actually sure if he had survived the bridge until I saw him last night. There's a splint on his ankle, but he can walk on it, so he probably took the variant too. I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost him now, just after finding him— I'm glad I don't have to know.
"Do you have any idea what's gonna happen with Topside?" I ask.
"I followed their new chief enforcer earlier," he says. "They found out Silco's dead, so they're looking for Jinx, like I said. Stopping people and searching their houses. It's like they're still trying to keep it civil, but they're freaking out. None of them have said a thing about the casualties."
"So you haven't heard from cup— from Caitlyn?"
"No. But she promised us protection, so she'll be back sometime." He picks up my empty plate. I was gonna lick it one more time, but I don't bother mentioning it. "We can defend this place fine, anyway, at least for a while. You can relax."
I realize I've been pacing. "I promised you protection too. Is there anything I can do right now?"
"Take a bath."
Fair enough.
They have a good water pump here and Ekko digs up a bar of soap, which I break in half so I can share it with Powder. He sits down to watch her while I'm gone. On the ground, almost everyone is hiding out, and they give me unenthusiastically accepting nods; one girl with pink scales takes me to pick out some Firelight garb from the reserves they must keep for refugees. I'm not too eager about it, but I find tape for my arms and that's enough to keep me from protesting.
The water pump is even less private than our room, but it's not like we had even the two walls in Stillwater, so I'm used to it. The cold doesn't bother me either, but for Powder, I fill up a tin basin the scaled girl gets me and boil a few buckets of water to temper it. I'm afraid to put her into shock.
"Do you want help?" Ekko asks when I come back in.
"No thanks." I used to hose the two of them down together when we were short on time and nobody cared then, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure what she'd be comfortable with. For the same reason, I take the sheet off my cot and drape it across a low-hanging branch in front of the bathtub on one of the two exposed sides. I sit on the other so I can kick out anyone who gets too close.
Powder squeaks when I set her in the water— it didn't end up warm, just not fully freezing— but stays asleep. Sun streams down through the leaves from the open sky, glancing over her bones, turning her nearly translucent. She's even pointier than I thought. I gave her baths when we were real little, before the rebellion, and she was still in her chubby phase then. It's just shocking to so vividly see and feel seven years apart.
Her hair is downright disgusting even by my standards, so I go ahead and unravel her braids and unthread the bullet shells so I can wash it. I pay close attention to her head wound. The length of her hair probably won't dry until tomorrow— I have no idea how she got it so long so fast, or why she could possibly want it that way, but when the thought crosses my mind to chop it, I shake it off.
I don't redo the braids, though. I don't think she'd want me to. Instead, I comb it with my fingers, and when I get her back to our room, I split it into two sections and hang them over either side of her bed to hopefully keep it from tangling.
I picked out some Firelight clothing for her while I was getting mine, but undressing her dead weight was brutal enough, so for now she's just wrapped in a towel with her sheets tucked up to her chin. Pointy or not, she looks like a child. Her fingers flex when I touch her palm.
"Vi," Ekko says behind me, and I hurriedly step back. "Your friend is here."
"Caitlyn? Does she look okay?"
"As far as I can tell. She wanted to see you— she's down at the front."
"Cool. Thanks. Do you think you could...?"
"Watch Jinx again? Why not? I don't have anything else to do."
I pause as we pass each other and double back to grab his arm. "Ekko."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. Thanks for being real. I know we haven't really done anything to earn it. Especially Powder."
He shrugs and looks down at my hand. "There was a time before this."
"Yeah. There was."
I don't bother to control my speed as soon as I'm through the door. In three seconds flat, I catch sight of Caitlyn speaking to Heimerdinger, a new rifle on her back and all her clumsiness from yesterday gone. Heimerdinger sees me coming and disappears with an understanding nod. I'm not sure what he thinks he's understanding.
Caitlyn smiles an enforcer's smile at me. "Good morning, Vi."
"Caitlyn. Your mom—?"
Some of her stiffness fades. "She's alive. So are Jayce and his lab partner. But they're critical, and the only ones."
"The only ones? What, so there's just not a Council anymore?" It's not like I didn't expect it— honestly, I expected worse— but shit. Shit.
Caitlyn nods. "The sheriff has taken charge temporarily, but unless my mum wakes up soon, things are going to get messy."
"Shit."
"I'm going to bring you some enforcers that I trust. They'll make a show of looking through here and finding nothing, and then they'll remain on watch discreetly to turn anyone else away."
"For how long?"
Her eyes move over my shoulder. "As long as I can keep them satisfied, I suppose. May I see Jinx?"
I follow her eyes. "Sure," I say. "I guess."
I bring her over and Ekko clears out, saying he wants me on watch with him once I'm done. Caitlyn makes a slow circle around Powder's bed and examines her chapped lips, her loose wet hair, her little feet and the bumps they make under her sheets. "She's not restrained," is her eventual assessment.
"She's unconscious."
"She won't always be."
I open my mouth to keep arguing, but reel myself in, acutely aware of the news I got on the ground. "What do you want me to do?
Caitlyn reaches into some elusive pocket of her uniform and comes out with two sets of handcuffs. "They won't hurt her. They're just a precaution."
I insist on being the one to pull Powder's wrists from her cocoon and attach them to the rickety wooden frame of her cot. She doesn't resist, but she squirms and shivers once. I wish there was something I could use so her skin wasn't in direct contact with the metal.
What's my problem? She's a bona fide terrorist. She can survive cold handcuffs.
"Vi?" Caitlyn says, and I get the idea she said something else before it too. "How's her head?"
"Fine. Her skull is just bruised, not cracked. And there's a concussion, obviously. She'll get back to normal in a couple days."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"Are you?"
Caitlyn raises her eyebrows. "Did you think I want her hurt? I don't."
"You hate her."
"That doesn't mean I want her in a coma forever. And I don't hate her. I just recognize that she's done bad things, and she's volatile and dangerous."
"I recognize those things too."
"I know."
I sit on my bed, tugging at the loose tape on my left arm. Caitlyn never said anything untrue about Powder yesterday or today, aside from She's too far gone, but that part counted for a lot.
I know I'm the one who's being unreasonable. If it weren't for me getting on their backs, Caitlyn and Ekko and the enforcers and everyone else in the Undercity would turn her in. I just can't. She's my sister.
"How're you gonna get your enforcers to help us?" I ask.
"I told them that I was with Jinx when the explosion happened, so she couldn't have been responsible, but she'd become the scapegoat anyway because of her past behavior. Most of the force wants that— they don't see any difference between people on this side of the river, really, and they'll target the easiest one— but there are some who are sympathetic. Who at least believe in finding the right perpetrator."
That's a nice thought. I don't think I buy it.
"They'll be back once they've found another culprit," Caitlyn says, "or once they've gotten frustrated with searching. She's still wanted for everything else she's done. But you have a moment, and I assume she'll wake up soon and you'll be able to think of another way out."
"Does it bother you to lie to them?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"I feel sorry for you." She glances back, shifting her weight from one clicky shoe to the other. "I feel sorry for the both of you."
"You don't have to feel sorry for us."
"I do, regardless. My people played a part in how things happened for you. It's foolish to think otherwise."
"No," I say. "I told you. Me and Powder are one thing I can't blame Topside for."
"Perhaps not fully." Caitlyn turns around the rest of the way and moves back to Powder's side. I go tense, but all she does is check the handcuffs. "I suppose I just don't think there's any occasion where spending your life under someone's boot can be considered irrelevant."
Under someone's boot. A few days down here and she's started talking like me and everyone down at the Last Drop used to.
"We're having the fake raid tonight, after sunset," she says. "You should stay out of it. You might make them wary."
"Can do, cupcake."
"I have to go. I'm doing interrogations with some of the others today to throw off suspicion. But— I can stop by tomorrow, if you'd like me to."
"Just can't stay away, can you?"
"Please, be serious. Our city is on the verge of civil war," she says primly. "And you're the one who begged me to come today."
"'Begged' is a strong word."
"Do you want me to visit tomorrow or not?"
I lean back on my hands, smirking over my heartbeat. "Yeah, cupcake. I'll see you then."
She stomps out and I make myself watch her clicky shoes so I don't look elsewhere and seem like a pervert. I'm the one who said oil and water— now she's chained my sister up, and there's the civil war thing, and I want her even more than I did before.
"Wait."
She turns around.
"I need the key to the handcuffs."
She comes back halfway and tosses it to me. I grin at her one more time and she scoffs, but smiles as she sets off again.
I go up to Ekko's room, a treehouse with walls that fully connect to each other. He finds Heimerdinger to watch Powder, and we head outside and switch places with two guards, who smile at him and hand us their hoverboards.
There's nothing much going on that I can see. Enforcers are everywhere, very quiet, just knocking on one door after another and politely strolling in. I'm sure whatever happens behind the doors is less polite, but our folk are quiet too, whispering in the alleys if they're out at all.
"How do you ride these?" I ask.
Ekko checks in with the guard closest to us, and we climb up to the top level the old-fashioned way to trade places again with two others. Up here, we can see almost every enforcer that's outside (not Caitlyn— I make sure to check), and the picture looks a little different: a pair is using a battering ram on a door on the north end, while one a few streets away looms over a pack of what looks like kids in their single digits. Ekko was right— they're freaking out.
He doesn't make any comments now, just demonstrates the proper hoverboard technique and closely circles me in the air, frowning, while I practice over the roof. Long after I figure I've got the hang of it, he backs off and lets me out over the city. He yells when I try doing a flip. I don't listen. I'm weightless.
"You said you'd protect the Firelights," he calls, chasing after me. "You can't just go off and die."
"Relax, little man."
One more loop around the highest towers and I head back to our original roof, aware of the blood vessel in his forehead. He lands a second after me, flipping his hoverboard beneath his feet, and says, "You think this is fun and games?"
"Yeah. It's supposed to be, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah. But not in your first ten minutes ever riding."
"Look at you," I say. "You're the one babysitting me now. Never thought I'd see the day."
"Me neither." He grabs his board and tucks it under his arm. "Mostly because I thought you were dead."
I thought he was too. He was even younger than Powder, and all of us were gone. "Good thing we're not."
"Yeah, good thing."
Shifts are short for the watch since there are so many volunteers, and Ekko goes inside soon enough, but I stay out until dusk, figuring it's the least I can do. I'm forced to stop to eat once, but otherwise, I drift around on my hoverboard, looking around for Caitlyn and daydreaming about punching enforcers.
I hole up with Powder after the sun sets and listen to the knocking on the main door, the harsh voices, the short exchange of yelling for show. Part of me can't help suspecting it's for real. I don't dare to peek through our walls, but I sit on the end of Powder's bed and await the slam of boots outside and a bruisingly tight grip on my arm and a concrete box.
I never wanted to let them make me afraid. At least not for my own sake. I can take hunger, and cold, and pain, mostly, especially when it comes from these dirty cowards. But I can't take silence. I can't take the space and time they leave me to remember.
They all clear out eventually, and Ekko drops in to confirm that we should be off the hook for a good several days. There's no way to predict beyond that, since we don't know how the war's gonna go. He's hearing whispers. Some sort of structure is coming together, some battle plan— it's information I would expect to be on the edge of my seat about, but I don't give a shit.
"G'night, then. Find me if you need anything."
"'Night, little man."
I rearrange Powder's arms like I've been doing periodically all day, in the hopes that it will make her cuffs a little less uncomfortable. She sighs.
She'll wake up soon, I can feel it. I've never been less ready.
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Intro lyrics from "Francis Forever" by Mitski.
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