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Powder walked towards her. “Do you remember that night?” Her questioned pulled Vi’s eyes away from Silco’s body at the other end of the table. “The one where you left me?”
“Yeah Powder, I remember.”
Powder leapt up and landed on the table in front of her with a smile. “Well that’s great because I seem to be having a little trouble! Wanna help me out a little?” Her gun sat on the table beside her, shining in the candle light.
Vi watched her carefully, watched the way her eyes glistened with the anticipation she used to have before testing out one of her grenades. “Help you?”
Her smile showed teeth. “Help. Me. Remember.” Her excitement grew with each word.
Don’t do this powder. “Wha-what did you forget?”
“Let’s start with the weather.” The weather? “Don’t give me that look, all the stories you told me when we were little started with the setting.”
Is that what I’m doing? “It was raining. Not before we got in the building, but afterward.”
“What else? Come on,” she nodded along with her words, “really set the atmosphere here.”
“Uh, it was night but it wasn’t dark ‘cause of the fire.”
Powder’s now-pink eyes lit up, “Oooo a fire, how’d that happen?”
Vi’s eyes watered, “There was an explosion.”
She gasped, “An explosion? How did that happen?”
Vi shook her head, “Please Powder...”
She laughed, “Please what? I’m just asking my big sister to tell me a story.”
“I don’t like this story.”
“Really? What’s not like to like about it?” She picked up the gun and fired it at the Claggor doll, “I wasn’t asking you!” She turned back to Vi with a smile, “Now are you going to finish the story, or am I going to need to shoot someone else.”
Her eye’s flicked to Caitlyn’s unconscious form before landing back on Powder. “It was your explosion. The first time one of your gadgets worked.”
“And?” Powder looked at Vi’s hands, “You aren’t going to cut your sister off right at the end are you?”
Vi clenched her jaw, determined not to relive that moment again. She imagined it enough on her own. “We’re not at the end though, are we? You can stop this right now, and you and I can leave together,” she looked into Powder’s eyes, pleading with her, but then the anticipation vanished from Powder’s eyes and her gun snapped to Caitlyn, who was slowly starting to regain consciousness.
“We can,” her eyes drifted to the sights of her gun, “if you tell me to pull this trigger. The only way we walk out of here together is if we’re the only two that walk out of here. So tell me to pull this trigger and we can.”
“I can’t do that!” Vi yelled.
“Then finish the story because if you don’t I’m going to SHOOT HER ANYWAY!” Jinx snarled. No, Powder, she’s still Powder.
“I hit you!” Vi admitted, “I hit you and I called you a jinx and I left you and it was the worst mistake I ever made!” She lowered her head and felt tears stream down her face as she remembered the worst moment of her life again.
“Well that’s not right,” her voice pulled Vi back, “You missed somethi-” A glass shard pressed against Jinx’s throat as her barrel met the underside of Caitlyn’s jaw. Only one of them was smiling, “Are you willing to die?”
“Are you?” Caitlyn fired back with fury in her voice.
The smile grew, “Looking forward to it, but I think I’d like to hear my sister finish the story first. You know, for my last request. Or,” her eyes shimmered and Caitlyn stumbled backward from the force of Jinx’s kick, “yours.” She pressed her finger partially down on the trigger, a single bit of effort from her and it’d be over.
Some blood trickled down Jinx’s neck, but Caitlyn was too slow; it was just a small cut. “Please stop!”
“Finish the story Violet, tell me what happened before you hit me, what I said to you.”
She didn’t need to search her memory to know what she was talking about. “You said you only wanted to help, that you didn’t mean to.”
Jinx nodded, “That’s right.” Vi didn’t like the look in her eye as she leant closer to her, still keeping Caitlyn trapped behind the barrel of her gun. “Do you know how much I’ve tried to help since then? How many times I haven’t meant to kill someone since then?” She smiled reassuringly at Vi. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer. It was rhetorical.” Jinx shrugged before her smile fell, and she saw a pink tear fall with it. “Besides it’s not like you haven’t scolded me for it already.”
Vi swallowed a lump in her throat. “The voice in your head you were talking about?”
“One of them...except,” she frowned, “it’s not anymore. You were in my head, but now your there.” She gestured at her. “It’s a little quieter, and I don’t need you to keep me going anymore...” She looked at Caitlyn, “Untie her.”
“What?” Her and Caitlyn asked it together.
“I can already hear Silco.” She stood up and snatched the blue orb from the cupcake. “I don’t want to hear you.”
“You think I’m just going to give up? You think I won’t come after you?” How dare she? “I will save you Powder!” A laugh filled the room, but this one wasn’t like the others, this one sent a chill up Vi’s spine. There wasn’t any inappropriate happiness in this laugh. It was sad and angry and it made Vi’s lip quiver. Come back to me.
“Why would you want to save Powder?” Jinx turned away to put the blue orb into a machine and Caitlyn ran to untie her ropes. “She blew up her family.”
“You didn’t mean to!” She screamed. Her muscles pulled at the ropes. “It was an accident!”
“You’re right,” Jinx walked up a ramp into the open air, “it was.” She pointed the weapon.
“Caitlyn!” She tried to warn her, but it was too late.
“This isn’t” A blinding blue light erupted from the weapon as her bindings finally came free, but it was too late. The rocket shot through the sky and Powder was gone.