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“Hey Cait,” Vi said casually.
She was leaning on the kitchen counter, a mug of coffee in her hand, not a care in the world. Sitting at the table was a very dirty, very small child that Caitlyn had never seen in her life.
It was three o’clock in the morning, and Caitlyn had had a particularly exhausting day between dealing with the new council, trying to track down Zaun’s latest serial killer, and trying to find new recruits after firing the latest patch for enforcer brutality. All she wanted to do was come home, screw her girlfriend, and then crash on their bed. Instead, she was standing in the kitchen doorway, trying to understand what she was seeing.
“Who on earth is that?”
Vi shrugged.
“Don’t know. She won’t tell me her name. I’m calling her Lavender. Cause of her hair. Want some coffee?”
Caitlyn didn’t answer, continuing to stare at the kid, who was wolfing down the bread Vi must have given her.
“What is she doing here?”
Vi poured her a cup of coffee anyway, handing her the mug.
“I went over to the Firelight base to see if Ekko had any lead on the serial killer,” she said. “And he did. Looks like it’s this shimmered-up nutcase calling himself Dr. Mundo. He thinks he’s helping people by chopping them up.”
“What?” Caitlyn said, taking the cup of coffee. “That’s incredible. Horrifying, but our first real breakthrough. Still doesn’t explain the random child. Is she one of Ekko’s foundlings?”
“Nah. She’s just an urchin. I found her begging and figured she could use a decent meal.”
“Right,” Caitlyn said, feeling a headache come on. “Can I talk to you for a second? Privately?”
She pulled Vi out of the kitchen and into the hallway.
“Did you just kidnap a random child?”
“What?” Vi said. “No! Didn’t you hear me? She’s an urchin. There’s no way she’s got family out there. If she did, she wouldn’t just follow me home.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said. “She’s got to belong to an orphanage or a foster home or someone.”
“Jeez, cupcake, you really don’t know how the world works down there, huh? A kid like her doesn’t belong to anyone or anywhere. They make money begging or stealing if they’re lucky. They sleep on the streets and, best case scenario, find a gang of other kids who can take care of them. Worst case, they end up freezing or starving or getting sold off.”
“Sold off?” Caitlyn echoed, feeling her stomach grow nauseous.
“Factories, mines, hell, even brothels. Trafficking is a huge problem in Zaun. Lots of orphans with no one to look out for them.”
Brothels? Somehow this was much worse than she’d imagined.
“Why aren’t we doing anything about this?”
“We did,” Vi said. “We took down the Chembarons, remember? But that was a few months ago, and now new assholes are popping up in their place.”
“I… I didn’t know the Chembarons were doing that.”
Vi shrugged, taking another sip of her coffee. She always did this: saying horrible things as if they were nothing. Just a hard fact of life she’d accepted as a small child. Caitlyn sometimes hated how calm she was. It was another reminder of what she had been through and all the ways Caitlyn and her city had failed her.
“Anyways,” Vi continued. “I thought I’d give her a decent meal and let her sleep here. We don’t have to keep her, but we can if you want to.”
“Keep her?” Caitlyn said. “You mean we just pull a random child off the streets and adopt her?”
“Well, yeah,” Vi said. “That’s how my dad got me.”
“He just—never mind. She can stay. We can figure out if this will be a permanent situation or not later. I’m not sure if we’re ready to be parents yet, but clearly she can’t go back on the streets. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll get her in an orphanage in Piltover. That’s got to be a better life for her, even if it won’t be perfect.”
“Really?” Vi said, perking up. “Aw, thanks, Cait. You’re the best. I’m sorry for just throwing this on you.”
“No,” Caitlyn said. “This is just another problem that we’ve been neglecting. We’ve got to make sure there are fewer kids like her in Zaun, or at least make the streets a safer place for them.”
She caught Vi looking at her with a strange expression on her face. Caitlyn wondered if she’d said something wrong.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, cupcake,” Vi said. “I guess sometimes your kindness still surprises me.”
Caitlyn almost scoffed at that. This wasn’t kindness; it was basic decency. And God knew she hadn’t been very kind lately. Especially not to Zaun. To Vi.
But she didn’t say any of that. Instead she just swallowed another mouthful of the bitter coffee, enjoying the much-needed rush of caffeine in her veins.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s make sure Lavender isn’t making herself sick.”