Chapter Text
Saturday, October 24, Pt. 2
Jinx’s door is unlocked when you reach the top floor, but she isn’t in her room. She isn’t in the bathroom either.
You bite your lip as you consider the state of her room. Things strewn about, clothes piled on the floor, shoes peeking out from the rumpled sheets.
You’re a body of anxiety as you hurry down the stairs to the backdoor. You recoil as an alarm goes off as soon as you twist the handle.
“Hold on!” Silco calls over the screaming wail.
This is bad.
After several seconds it turns off, and you rush out the door without waiting for Silco’s inevitable desire for an explanation. You already know what you’re going to find when you reach Jinx’s studio, but you want to be 100% sure.
You stand in the emptiness and unnatural silence, a strange liminal space. Pieces of Jinx everywhere, somewhere she should be, though she’s nowhere to be found.
You've already accepted the inevitable truth.
She’s gone.
We should have seen this coming.
But how did she leave the house without triggering the alarm? You release a groan and rub your suddenly tense forehead.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?”
Of course Silco followed. Of course he’d put it together so quickly.
When you turn, his lean frame is shadowed, outlined in gold by the light pouring in from outside. You don't have to say a word, your painted expression says it all.
He lowers his head, and after several seconds he heaves a sigh.
“We should examine the camera footage. Sevika will have checked in on her before leaving, which should narrow down the time frame of her escape.”
He holds out his hand, and you automatically hurry forward to take it. You’re shocked by the contemplative set of his features. Though tense, he seems to be calm. Or at least, he's doing a very good job of pretending.
He waits for you to close the studio before leading you directly to his office.
He urges you to sit on the sofa as he heads to his desk. As his computer is booted up he takes a remote, and the landscape portrait of himself and Jinx above the mantle retracts upward to reveal a TV screen. Almost immediately his desktop computer is being mirrored, an extremely basic and un-personalized home screen of dark blue with a glowing Windows insignia casting light on rows of file folders with cryptic names.
He enters some version of chrome that isn’t chrome, and along the top bookmarks bar clicks on a link. A very official screen pops into existence, asking for a security password. He enters one, and various security feeds populate the screen. There are three rows of three views, with what looks like several more pages of feeds. He expands a sidebar, and you attempt to figure out where all the cameras are in the house. It looks like there's one in every main room downstairs, as well as in the halls, and on every eave of the house. All the personal bedrooms – and Silco’s office – are exempt from cameras, though the guest room has one in the corner that has a clear view of the entire space.
As you scan the feeds you notice the camera just outside his office. The camera is not, in fact, located inside the portrait of Jinx as she’d lead you to believe, but rather faces the portraits as if hidden on the door frame.
You release a small huff of exasperated fondness.
She really fooled you into waving at nothing.
Though she would have given the camera a generous view of your behind.
That mischievous scamp.
Silco changes camera views, and the whole screen blinks. He flicks to a feed that shows the door to the courtyard, from the inside. The time stamp shows it to be 10am on October 23rd. It's from inside the coat room, where you’d overheard his conversation with Sevika.
The horror of realization creeps in, and you can't help the flush of relief when he changes the camera view to the courtyard from outside the door.
Thank God.
You really don’t want to explain to Silco why you were eavesdropping, or what you overheard while doing so. Especially not right now.
He scrubs the feed, and you see a very quiet courtyard, with the occasional car and figure flying in and out of camera at triple speed. There’s Sevika, then yourself, arriving to make Baklava, then in a few moments it’s you and Jinx leaving for the party.
So much has happened in the last 24 hours.
Daylight fades to twilight, then the images on the feed turn eerie. Thomas' car flies in, and he exits the vehicle with Jinx in his arms. An hour passes before he leaves. Midnight comes and goes, and Silco finally slows the feed down when it approaches 2am. Sevika’s truck rolls into the feed, and Silco meets her outside. You watch the conversation you overheard, feeling a little hot. Silco is shirtless, and you pretend you’re not examining him as he speeds up the feed again. For some time the courtyard is quiet and still. Sunlight filters in, then Sevika is seen, pushing open the door.
Silco pauses the feed, then flicks through camera views until reaching the one that has a view of Jinx’s room from the outside. The timestamps reads the exact same time as Sevika leaving, at 7am on the dot.
He plays the feed. Only a second passes before the window is shoved open, and Jinx’s leg is being thrown over the sill. She scrambles out the second story window with a slightly awkward maneuver. Your heart hurts as you see her disheveled hair and rumpled dress.
She didn’t even change.
In a few unsure movements, she lowers the window halfway, then wiggles until her entire body is hanging from the ledge of the window by just her fingers. With one hand she manages to shut the window the rest of the way behind her. You wonder how on earth she’s going to make it to the ground safely without breaking her legs, but she holds on, pulling herself sideways one unsteady reach at a time. She reaches the end of the sill, sets her feet like a spider against the house, and after a pause launches herself to the next window frame. You’re on the edge of the sofa, tense, watching her struggle to keep hold of the ledge with only her fingertips. But after a terrifying moment she seems to find a secure hold, and her right hand finds purchase on the frame.
You release a pent up breath.
She wiggles to the left again, towards a drain pipe, and you aren’t surprised when she grabs hold of it and scuttles the rest of the way down with almost no effort at all. As soon as she hits the ground she takes off towards the wall connected to the neighbor, and practically launches herself over it.
And she’s gone. Despite all of her struggling, the entire maneuver had taken less than 30 seconds to complete, from window open to disappearing over the wall.
If you weren’t so worried, you’d be impressed.
Silco doesn’t appear to feel one way or the other about his daughter’s athletics. He’s drumming his fingers on the desk, staring blankly at the piles of papers on the surface. Neither of you voice it, but you know where she’s gone.
Ekko’s the only person on earth she would run to. With Ekko, she was out of reach from her father, for a little while.
He looks at you at last, and you say, “I’ll call Ekko?”
“And I’ll call his father.”
“I just need his number.”
In only a few moments he’s sent you Ekko’s contact information, an unnamed number. You hit call as you head out of the room. Ekko doesn’t answer, which you expect, so you leave a quiet voicemail.
“Hi Ekko, it's me. Jinx's friend," You drop your name and after an unsure pause say, "I promise I’m not calling to convince you to tell Jinx to come home, because I know you won’t. I know she won’t listen anyway. And that’s okay. I know you’ll take good care of her. But if you could just send me a text to let me know she’s okay, I would really appreciate it. And so would her dad.”
You hang up, and hope against hope that he’ll reply sometime today.
You slip back into the office. Silco appears to be in conversation with Thomas, though he’s speaking very low so you can’t hear what exactly he’s saying. Out of respect you don’t venture closer, but from a distance it appears to be a civil if tense conversation. When he hangs up he rests his head back on the headrest, face haggard.
As you approach the desk he takes a deep breath.
“Thomas hasn’t seen his son this morning.”
You nod. Ekko probably left so he wouldn’t get his father in trouble with Silco.
“And it appears that my daughter has been doing more with her time than simply gaining an education.”
“So… You didn’t teach her how to do that?”
“Scale the sheer face of a building?” He intones. “Hardly. Though she has always had a talent for climbing, that kind of maneuvering requires skill. Perhaps I should have asked her more questions about the study groups she’s claimed to have joined this semester.”
He pushes to his feet and paces to the window.
You bite your cheek to hold in all the advice you want to give.
“I know what you’re going to say. You would encourage me not to pursue my daughter any further. To let the matter lie until she decides she’s ready to talk.”
You don’t answer, because he’s right.
He folds his hands behind his back and stares quietly out the window for several long moments.
“I believe she may be testing me. Seeing if I’ll continue in my former ways and send the hounds after her.”
“And will you?”
He doesn't immediately answer. You press your hands together as if in prayer, waiting.
“No.”
You let out a sigh of relief.
“If Jinx needs time, I can at least give her that. Ekko won’t let her come to harm, if it’s within his power. As he demonstrated last night. She’ll come back, when she’s ready.” His words sound dull and automatic. “We’d do well to continue as we were. Breakfast is ready, if you’re still interested.”
“Thank you, no. But do you want anything? I could bring it up for you.”
“No, thank you. I seem to have lost my appetite.”
Neither of you move. He still hasn’t turned away from the window.
“Okay. Would you… would you like to be alone?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“Of course. Well… maybe I’ll go then, and um…I’ll let you know if Ekko tells me anything?”
“I would appreciate that.”
“Yes.”
You hesitate in the middle of the office. He looks so solitary and forlorn, outlined in the window, that it hurts your heart.
You round the desk, and wrap your arms around him from behind. As you lay your head on his back he leans into the embrace.
“Jinx loves you, and she’ll come back.”
He doesn’t respond, except to expel a deep breath. You hold him close for a few seconds longer before backing away. You leave him staring out the window, and quietly exit the room.
October 24, 5:07pm
“Hey boss, you wanna go on your break?”
Connor’s voice startles you out of your reverie. You look up your hand of soapy sponge and dirty dish, processing slowly. “Hm? Break? Oh, no, that’s okay. You go ahead.”
“You sure?”
He’s watching you with a slightly worried frown, as he’s done all day. Of all your coworkers, he’s been the most perturbed by your lack of focus.
“Maybe you can just take a 10?”
You don’t really want extra time to let your mind run rampant, but if only to pacify his concern, you nod. “Okay, yeah. I’ll take a 10.”
“Alright!” He claps. “Maybe you could take it outside and get some good ‘ole Vitamin D! It looks mighty fine out there today.”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“And if you realize you want to extend your 10 into a 30, you just say the word boss lady. I’m big time chillin’.”
You release a tired smile. “Thanks Connor.”
You grab your already watered down shift drink and water bottle and slowly drag yourself outdoors. The patio is already full because, as Connor said, it is a beautiful day, so you take yourself down the street instead. It’s busy in downtown on Saturdays, but somehow you find an empty bench. It’s underneath a Jacaranda tree, and you have to brush aside the sticky shower of violet flowers that have been smashed into the curled wooden slats.
You plop onto the bench, lean back, and close your eyes. Singular conversations flow past, mundane comments about unhelpful professors and unrealistic school work loads, of businessmen griping about overtime at the office. Two mothers discuss the difficulties of handling two toddlers under 3 years old while a child is loudly exclaiming over a large statue of a werewolf that’s been set up in the square as a photo-op for out-of-towners.
Normal sounds of normal life from the lives of normal people.
You try to remember what it felt like to be one of those normal people, and fail.
Your phone buzzes, and you automatically check the notification.
You sit up quickly, suddenly awake as you read the two word text from an unknown number.
“She’s alright.”
Ekko!
You type and re-type anxious answers.
“I’m so happy to hear that!”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Good!”
You settle on, “Thank you.”
You don’t actually expect anything else from him, so you’re surprised when the next text comes in.
“We want to talk to you, alone. It’s about your Charles drug theory.”
“Okay,” You reply quickly, but more than a little confused. “When? And why?”
“A little birdy told us you’ll be at the pumpkin patch tomorrow. How about we meet up in the maze?”
Unsurprisingly, he’s ignored the more important question of Why.
“Okay. I get off work at 9:30, so I won’t get there until almost 10.”
“That’s fine with us. We’ll see you at the photo-op of the demogorgon, in the dead center of the maze at 10:15.”
You're grateful the pumpkin patch stays open late on weekends, till midnight. It's unfortunately upgraded to a haunted maze after dark, with smoke machines and people in masks popping out of the shadows, which you hate.
But you're willing to brave it, for Jinx.
“I’ll be there,” You reply.
“Jinx asks that you don’t tell Silco about the plan. She’s worried he’s going to try to crash the party.”
“He won’t,” You reply confidently.
“She’s not so sure. She won’t meet with you until you promise.”
You’re confused by her insistence, especially since Silco’s already proved that he’s willing to give her space. But you don’t want to miss this opportunity to see for yourself that she’s doing okay.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Good. See you tomorrow shop girl.”
You lower the phone and bite your lip.
You’ve already promised, but it feels wrong not to tell Silco that his daughter is alright and that she wants to meet with you.
Maybe there’s a way to tell him without telling him.
You said you wouldn’t tell Silco about your plan to meet them in the center of the maze, but maybe you can tell him that you’re going to possibly see them at the pumpkin patch. And if you don’t mention that you’re meeting to discuss your theory about Charles...
That's okay, right?
And you’re still keeping your promise without being absolutely dishonest.
You don’t have to tell him that you’ve made any special plans. Just that you might have a no-pressure meet-up, and that you’ll let him know how she’s doing.
It’ll be fine. You aren’t doing anything wrong.
But as you compose the message you still feel slightly guilty.
“Hi Silco, I just wanted to let you know that Ekko texted that Jinx is okay, and that they want to talk to me tomorrow at the Pumpkin Patch. I’ll let you know how she’s doing when I see her!”
You send it and sit back, stewing in guilt and worry.
What could they possibly need to tell me about Charles, in secret? What can I possibly do to help that Silco wouldn’t be far more qualified for?
But you’d promised.
It’s going to be fine. You’re going to see Jinx tomorrow, figure out how to reunite her with her dad, and everything’s going to be alright. It’s going to be fine…
It’s what you tell yourself when Silco sends you a one word response, “Okay”.
It’s what you tell yourself before you go to sleep, and when you go to work the next day. You grab your purse with the gun stowed in the bottom, your mind a mass of raw nerves. Cal texts to confirm you’re still meeting the crew at the Patch, and you tell him that you have something to do and that you’ll meet with him a little later than you expected.
Here we go, You think as you clock out of your shift and head towards the cheery lights of the festival. Your hands tighten on the wheel.
You have no idea what to expect from your upcoming conversation, but whatever it is, you'll be ready.
You think about the stress of getting through the maze in the dark and fog, being stalked by masked men, and swallow back a sudden rise of nausea.
Or not.