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It's dark. It's so dark. She's used to the darkness, but this is a different kind; it pulses and burns in points, bleeding red at the corners of her vision like stained glass. It hurts.
Good. Let it hurt. What doesn't kill her makes her stronger.
Unless she's already dead. It's hard to tell.
She thinks of laughing, but her breath rattles in her chest, playing her ribs like a pipe organ. Not dead, then; corpses don't breathe.
Maybe jinxed ones do.
Words slither through her eardrums, voices; past and present, gone and near. She wishes she could say she doesn't recognize some of them, but she does, somewhere deep inside where it used to ache the most. She remembers every mutter, every curse, every sideways glance. Dead men tell no tales, but they still sing songs, weaving a web of lies and false comfort. For a moment, she wants to give in. She wants to fall into their suffocating embraces, wants to let them destroy her from the inside out.
I am not going to abandon her again.
It cuts through her mind, silver-sharp as the edge of a knife. Her stomach roils, but she does not cry, not anymore. She has already been wrung dry, torn asunder until her eyes burn with grit like sand from a hot desert dune. The time for grief is over. No longer can she linger over what was, what might have been; there is only what is, only what will be. The choice is in her hands.
...
Oh, that's a good one.
Choices, choices. Has she ever had a choice? From the beginning, there was no hope. The one time she let herself go was when she destroyed everything. Choices aren't for people like her.
People like her... like what? People who are fucked up? People who can't do anything right?
But... that's not true. She isn't the one in the wrong here. She was only ever trying to help. It isn't her fault. It can't have been her fault, right? No. See, it's already messing with her. They're already messing with her. She's losing herself again.
She wishes it wasn't still so dark.
An image flashes through the shadows, fleeting and scented sweet as perfume. The same voice, softer, younger. She sees its owner, but she can't hear any of the words, except for one.
Powder...
She reaches out, almost subconsciously, but the picture flickers as soon as her fingers brush the surface. It ripples once, twice, and vanishes back into the darkness.
Fuck. Fuck-
Her head spins. She feels like she's moving, but she seems to be in the same place. It's still dark, but in the distance, there's a pinprick of light. She hears more than feels her knees slide against the floor, legs buckling under her as she leans towards the distant spark. She doesn't know what it is, she doesn't know why she wants to go to it, but it feels safe and familiar and warm in a way she nearly forgot.
I'm not going anywhere.
"You're already gone."
Her voice cracks, and she starts, having forgotten she could even speak. Her throat stings like she swallowed ashes, and her voice rings through the large space, too loud.
I'm here.
"You're not." She looks to the speck of light. Even though she hasn't budged, it seems to be getting closer, closer- and suddenly the warmth is replaced by cold, like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over her head. She scrambles back, back, until her shoulders hit something solid and she can't go any further. "You're not, you're not!"
She's gone. Fooled me once, shame on you. Fooled me twice, shame on me. There isn't going to be a third time. "You made your choice."
The silence is deafening. She raises her brows, leaning forwards. "You want another?"
She doesn't care about you. She has someone else now. Someone better, stronger, kinder than you.
Blue eyes loom in the mouth of the cave; because now, she can see it's a cave, and the opening is the light that's been drawing ever nearer. Blue eyes, framed with long lashes that brush sharp cheeks and are deep and knowing and so good it makes her sick.
"Leave me alone," she screams, shrieks, tears through her tangled braids with shaking, ashy fingers- and then it does.
The light sputters once, twice, then goes out. She's alone again, and it's dark again.
Her breathing is ragged in her ears, ripping at her esophagus. She tries to calm herself, but the effort is laughable; she gives up after a short attempt. No. No.
She was so close. It isn't all gone, it can't be gone. She saw the look in Vi's eyes for that first moment. She was real that time, and she embraced her, and she didn't disappear or dissolve into a snarling beast without eyes. She still loved her. She still loves her. They can still fix it. Can't they?
...
....
She called her Powder.
But Powder isn't here anymore.
Vi misses Powder. She loves Powder. Powder is her sister, the same one she lost all those years ago.
Jinx? Jinx is a stranger. To her, maybe a monster. Vi sees Powder, and her words are for Powder, but Jinx is the only one who hears, and they burn all the more for it. She's been marked and branded too many times now; no longer. Powder is dead, and it's best she stays that way, or Jinx will kill her over again with her own two hands.
She thinks of Vi's arms around her; then she thinks of them around the enforcer. Always, forever, never. It makes her nauseous. She's fought for so long, kept herself going for years, only to be cast aside and replaced with the next best thing. Vi will never understand. She can't understand, because she doesn't care enough.
That isn't true, says another voice, unlike any of the others so far, a voice that wafts up like a scent on the wind. It curls its way around her brain and settles at the back of her cranium, caressing and whispering in soft tones. Vi's gaze flashes through her mind again, frozen in time; she sees the regret, the love, the disbelief, everything rolled up and stored in that face, so different but so similar. Vi is the same, deep down, under the muscles and the scars and the tough shell. Jinx is not. No matter how hard she tries, she will never be Powder.
She’s sure she feels movement this time, something jostling her from underneath, but she glances down, and everything is still the same, so it seems only a minor concern, and she’s ready to turn back and challenge the truth-
Then she blinks, and it’s only for a split second, but the cave is gone, and instead there's blinding whiteness, brighter than the sun. She can feel her lips, dry and chapped, parting for a breath between coughs. Something is moving nearby, but she can't see anything except the light. For a moment she fears it's come back to claim her after all, and that's when the pain starts, so abrupt and sharp that she doesn’t even realize it’s hit her for a good few seconds.
It's like fire in her veins. She's sure she's dying this time. It scorches her flesh until it feels colder than ice and she shakes, trembling, ripped from limb to limb. She hears screaming, and it's so primal, so uncontrolled that it nearly frightens her until she realizes it's herself, vocal cords wearing thin with desperation-
That's when she sees it.
There's another picture, but this one feels more vivid and real than any of the others so far. Maybe it is real this time.
"You know, Powder, you're stronger than you think."
She can still feel the bubbling under her skin, but what hurts more are the silhouettes of the two girls, illuminated by the light from behind. She feels her lips move to form the syllable, that single syllable that haunts her forever, but she can't hear herself, only the voice of the girl in the picture (because that's all it is, another picture, she tries to remind herself again, even as it becomes more and more real).
"I'm so sorry, Powder."
Sorry....
The muzzle of the gun glints platinum. She searches for hesitation, but there isn't even a beat missed as the trigger clicks.
Another wave of agony wracks her frame, and she screams again, writhing. Something is holding her down, digging into her body and shackling her, and she can only watch, voice long gone hoarse and eyes rolling until they brush her skull as the little girl collapses without a sound and in her place sprouts someone else, someone who doesn't belong, yet at the same time belongs more than the girl ever did. They loom over her, both of them with shining eyes and grinning mouths that seem too large for their faces, and she can do nothing but scream until her lungs burst out of her throat.
And then it's over. It lasted for only a minute at most, but it felt a lifetime. Jinx is aware of her heart thudding in her ears, the power flowing through her body easy as water. And she knows; oh, she knows with more certainty than ever before. She lies still on her iron catafalque, and yes, she knows what she must do.
You want her back, you'll get her back.
Whatever it takes.