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“Get their scrawny asses in the cell! These are the fuckers who blew up the bridge.” The guard threw their unconscious bodies to a smaller man for processing. “I don’t give a fuck about what you put on the paperwork, just make this not my problem.”
The small guard nervously took the bodies, dragging one over each shoulder and slowly making his way to the cell, he threw the girl in one and the maybe guy in the other, unsure of what they would possibly get up to otherwise.
Ekko regained consciousness the second he hit the floor, concrete was never something that he’d sleep on, the cold against his skin jolted him awake immediately. He took in his surroundings, a small, cold, stone cell. Nothing of interest or threat. The moaning behind him set him on high alert. He jumped across the floor to the other side of the cell, looking behind him in alarm.
Jinx. Knocked out cold, her wounds somewhat dressed, at home on the concrete floor. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or put out by the fact that she was ok. He had been intending to injure her, maybe kill her, but he couldn’t. For a brief second, she was the girl he played with his whole childhood, it was only a game for them to play. In that brief second, she decided to blow the sky to hell, almost killing them both.
The guards probably brought them to the cells, assuming that they were in some sort of kahoots. Just like a damn topsider, to see people from the undercity and not know they were mortal enemies instead of friends. The fireflies would be alright without him for now, but eventually they’d want to know where he went which meant an escape was in order.
He groaned, throwing his head back against the bars without care, his locs protecting him from the impact. This was just great, they would never buy that he wasn’t in on the conspiracy to blow up the bridge and then he’d be in Stillwater forever.
He felt movement on the other side of the bars. Jinx groaned, the ache in her head growing as she looked at the fluorescent light in the cell. She closed her eyes for a moment, before looking around, sighing when her eyes landed on the bars of the cell.
She froze when she realized there was someone warm behind her, moving away from the bars, she relaxed when she saw the blonde hair, while there were many threats to her life, none of them would come from him.
Jinx chuckled, “Boy Wonder. You couldn’t save us?”
Ekko smirked, “I don’t think that any of us can be saved.”
Jinx tilted her head, “Then why’d you come?”
“Obviously I was letting the enforcer and Vi-”
“Not just now. After I joined Silco.”
“It doesn’t matter, after all, you’re Jinx now, remember?”
“If it didn’t matter then you wouldn’t have tried to come for me.”
Ekko looked up to see Jinx staring at him. “Why do you care? You didn’t leave with me.”
“Maybe it’s-” Violet helping Caitlyn into Topside “Call it morbid curiosity.”
He sighed, laying his head on his arms that were propped up by his legs. “I came because I was the only one who could. I spent a long time thinking that you and Vi and V- everyone else was gone for good. Things went to shit and I was hearing about a blue haired girl who was new and running with Silco now. I figured he kidnapped you, forced you to work for him, but I came and that wasn’t the case. You didn’t- it didn’t seem like you cared anymore.”
“I cared. We may be in different spots now, but I always cared, especially about you. You were the only one who always knew that I wasn’t going to be any sort of boxer.”
“I cared too. But you didn’t want me- my help I mean.”
“You were just too late. All of you were. It was too late to save me, I’m Jinx now and Jinx is with Silco through and through.”
Ekko stood, moving across the room, “You know that it’s not too late to change, I could still-”
“No. Everything’s changed, everyone’s moved on but not me. I’m a vestige of the past, you’re not meant to be with me, not anymore.”
“Powder, I mean-” he put up his hands, using them to grip the bars, “I meant Jinx, we-”
Mylo and Claggor crowd around her, calling her a Jinx. “NO!” she curled up into a ball as tight as she could.
Ekko put his head down. The last time he tried to reach out to her, she’d reacted like this as if there was some monster that he couldn’t see. One more battle that he couldn’t save her from. How different their lives could’ve been if he had never told them about that tip. If he hadn’t done that then maybe he would still have her, still have them all. Instead, being the boy wonder was destined to bring him isolation, a cold empty cell next to a girl he’d never know again.