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Sometimes, unconditional love for a daughter meant taking notice of the little details.
Even from childhood, Silco had realised how Jinx’s appetite left little to be desired. It was voracious and if left unrestricted, near unstoppable. She ate and ate and ate like the world had starved her tiny body beyond her mind’s repair. Though Silco had experienced many firsts ever since taking Jinx under his tattered wings, wrestling a child leg first away from a food stand remained more memorable than the moment Shimmer ran its effect on its first subject.
It was rather unusual for those who were citizens of Zaun; let nothing be left unsaid, they trudged their bodies knee deep in poverty. Every source of food was a valuable one, and many had eventually learned to tighten their belts in favour of living to see, much less eat, another day.
Jinx’s appetite was a selfish creature that did not regard the unsaid rule with much understanding. Silco could only quietly admire Vander’s ability to feed her once she finished running about the nooks and alleys like an un-fixed cat. Nearly every day, when Jinx wasn’t holed up in her room learning or inventing on her gadgets, she’d approach Silco with a spark in her eyes that only grew brighter the longer she stayed with him; it was a spark he could never extinguish –
“Money, please!” Jinx would ask fearlessly, and Silco wondered more than once the reason he was building his underside empire. “Thanks, dad. You’re the best!” A cackle, and his fickle, unpredictable daughter was gone like the wind.
It was for the nation of Zaun, so that its brothers and sisters could have future whose light was not blocked by rusted pipes and broken glass.
The money was likely used for food, of course; too many vendors have treated Silco like an old friend whenever he passed their stalls. They like him because his daughter paid their rent every month, and rent wasn’t cheap with the city’s growing population and limited space. Another issue to fix soon, he assumed, on top of so many other problems.
Problems such as his daughter’s increasing habit of putting her explosive hobbies where they ought not to be. He honestly couldn’t mind less so long as it kept the happy grin on her face. However, there were occasions when he wished she was less… unhinged and trigger-happy. The reason to that was a mystery to him, honestly.
By the long term, there was nothing he’d ask more from his daughter. Just that she kept being the way she was and stronger. Jinx was already perfect from the moment she stole his mug for half a day and thought he wouldn’t notice. The mug reappeared the next day, the leviathan sharks he so appreciated watching in his underwater lab drawn with jagged teeth and glowing pens.
She was perfect when she knocked timidly on his door while cradling a rabbit plush toy; “I… I had a nightmare,” she said softly, eyes so fearful yet trusting. He knew she knew he’d soon break his arm than hurt her. Jinx’s fears were incorporeal like his – they both dreamed of family leaving and fighting demons alone. Silco had carried her by her underarms and tucked the girl next to him. She then sung sweet lullaby for herself and that was when Silco was confident Jinx would survive his ambitions.
Alas, his mind wandered, but back to the problem at hand –
In summary, Jinx was known to be able to fit a fully grown man in her stomach if she needed. Presently, it appeared as though she’d reject even the idea of bread down her gull. She was already eighteen, and that was the age females long stopped growing, wasn’t it? Still, to take away what was so frighteningly Jinx tickled an uncomfortable bone in Silco’s body. Puberty had hit Silco’s daughter like a raging army of enforcers rather early on, and he dreaded the day he’d have to filter out the filth who approached Jinx for nefarious means.
Lust, power, and wealth. These were strong motivators for anyone to hide their true selves behind masks; Silco detested traitors of every form on top of that. Moreover, who was worthy to carry the legacy of the Nation of Zaun once he was done? Jinx had stated her disinterest in politics. She’d much rather tinker with gadgets and maim someone before learning about supply and demand graphs. A crime lord’s job was exhausting sometimes, Silco was lucky he possessed the passion for it.
The first day he noticed her strange decrease in appetite was when she turned down a trip to her favourite takeaway. The food there was good and cheap, and its owner dealt with drugs that recently struck popularity. It was simply in Silco’s convenience that he offered a quick meal together with his daughter. They’d not eaten together for a while because of the drama regarding the failed shipping and Marcus’s persistent attempts to contact him and demand for answers.
“You’re not hungry?” Silco asked softly, usually aware of his tone and volume around her. He himself was not even aware of his behaviour until Sevika disdainfully pointed it out. In response, Jinx shook her head hard enough her braids flung from side to side, “nope, haven’t been feeling hungry for a few days now.”
Silco narrowed his eyes. “When was the last time you ate?”
“Ummm–”
Jinx averted her gaze from his and linked her fingers behind her back. She bent forward before leaning backwards, rocking on her heels that indicated she was thinking about telling a truth he wouldn’t like or a lie he’d immediately catch.
It was all fun and games of banal needling until his daughter admitted she’d not touched food for over 3 days. Silco was not a poor man even by upperside standards. His illegal businesses made sure he flourished financially, so it was physically impossible for his daughter to go hungry since the day he cradled her trembling body surrounded by flames and henchmen and the body of his dead once-brother.
“You’re ill,” Silco concluded easily. He stepped froward closer to Jinx and held her face carefully. His vision observed first-hand every detail he needed from her. The way her beaths were short and shallow, the sickly paleness of her skin, and the depth her cheeks sunk. He was busy for less than a week and his daughter looked ready to kick the metaphorical bucket any time.
Just the thought made him ill. Silco tore his hand away before Jinx noticed how they’d turned cold from thinking the unthinkable. “I’ll get someone to make something easy on your stomach,” he told her sternly.
Jinx immediately groaned; “No – ugh, that’s not necessary, dad.”
“It is when you look three feet from rising as a corpse from an early grave, Jinx.”
“I’m not gonna die.”
“No, you’re not,” he agreed amicably, “not under my watch.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Jinx rolled her eyes. She gestured to herself from head to bottom, “see? I’m fine. More than fine! I don’t even remember what hunger is anymore.”
“I heard you opening and shutting the fridge repeatedly last night.”
Silco pretended he didn’t hear Jinx’s rude sounds of frustration as she stomped off like the mature young adult she was. Honestly, it was like she believed her father was both stupid and deaf. There was something very wrong with his daughter, and he needed to find out what.
A good father or caretaker was the last thing Silco would ever claim himself to be. Once, he owned a nameless and hairless cat that was affectionate to every breathing organism in the lab except him. For Silco, there was no love lost when he threw the creature into the tank to test Shimmer. He remembered it vaguely for the few weeks the cat lived off him – always hissing and crouching and arching its back while puffing up non-existent fur; it was afraid of him for some reason: the hand that fed it.
Such intrigued him, and often, he’d think about truly giving the cat a reason to fear him. However, mindless acts of cruelty on animals were beneath him. In the lab, everything had a purpose; the cat’s purpose was its hatred for Silco, he supposed. In time, it would be the steppingstone for the production and improvement of Shimmer. He’d been right in not killing the ungrateful creature before.
Jinx had been the total opposite of the animal. When she first came to him, the girl was inconsolable if he left her for even a minute. Her tiny arms would wrap around his pantlegs, tight, the fabric occasionally wet with tears for whichever distance apart Jinx had deemed unacceptable.
Silco let it happen.
Rather, he placed his whole hand on her little blue head: “What’s wrong? Talk to me, I want to hear you,” he’d say softly, so not to scare her easy touches away. On Jinx’s end, she was not hesitant to speak, which was something he liked in her – one of many characteristics. “Don’t leave me,”, “I want to show you something,” “Let me help you too, please,” simple words, and Silco went from letting her cling to his legs to carrying her in his arms often enough his employees stared.
Being his daughter, Jinx was special, Jinx was perfect. Jinx wouldn’t eat the bloody porridge even with him giving her a look that had great men grovelling for forgiveness.
Silco pinched the bridge of his nose. “You won’t eat,” he sighed.
“No shit,” his daughter sassed, “I’m not hungry.”
“I’m not one for petty punishments, but I will forbid you from missions, child. I need to know I can trust you won’t topple over from hunger during critical moments.”
Truthfully, it wasn’t nearly as deep. He simply wanted her not to starve, but Jinx was stubborn and sometimes stubborn individuals simply needed a slight push to get them moving in a way he wanted.
Immediately, Jinx was pouncing on him over her seat at the dining table, “No!” She murmured too soft words underneath her breath and a reluctant expression flickered over her face. She went from tense to relaxed on his lap in a blink of an eye. “Fine,” she grumbled sulkily, “I’ll let you in on the mystery.”
It took her a while to find the words. More accurately, she had them and feared them. Her eyes flickered constantly from the exit of the dining room and to his face and then back again. The side of his thigh that Jinx was curled up on was beginning to get numb. Finally – “I can’t eat.”
“Excuse me?”
“I literally cannot eat. Everything tastes like shit and I don’t know why. I’ve been hungry for days, but I can’t even get the food on my tongue before I’m spitting it out, and when I force myself to swallow it, my stomach gets fucked up and I throw it all up.”
Silco thought that was the end of it. He’d just have to hire all the doctors existing in the underside. No, Jinx was the last person he should’ve assumed to be easy because the girl continued as though she hadn’t sat him through an emotional roller coaster in the past month alone.
“Not gonna lie though, Sevika has been looking pretty tasty these few days.”
His daughter was a lesbian?
“I just wanna eat her all up, literally.”
… Literally?
“Dad. That’s it. I need to eat humans.”
Why?!
Out loud, Silco said, “Are you a lesbian?” in which Jinx replied, “don’t know yet. Will you get me someone to eat, dad?”
“Of course,” and there was that.
Sometimes, unconditional love for a daughter meant not only taking notice of the little details, but also having no questions about odd dietary changes.