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The first night Vi doesn’t come home, Caitlyn is only slightly worried.
After all, it isn’t unheard of for Vi to get tangled up in some trouble that ends with her spending the night in an alley or a ditch. Caitlyn hates that fact, but it’s true. If she and Caitlyn get into an argument, sometimes Vi will leave to cool off at Ekko or one of her undercity friends’ places. Occasionally she gets into fights and wakes up in a holding cell. On some especially sordid nights, Vi storms off and spends the rest of the night drinking, which typically leads to her sleeping in a gutter and being scraped off the ground outside the bar by a very concerned Caitlyn. A long bath and a frustrated scolding from her partner are inevitable afterwards.
Caitlyn loves her partner deeply, more deeply than she ever knew she could love someone. And that’s why it pains her so badly when has to head to Zaun’s jail in the early bells of the morning to find the woman she loves, battered and bruised from a drunken row. It hurts to watch her partner have so little care over what happens to her own body. But no matter what happens, the two of them always find their way back to each other again. It’s what makes their relationship work.
The self-destructive behaviors have subsided slightly over time, which makes Caitlyn hopeful. But they’re still not gone entirely. On some rare nights, Caitlyn still has to go out and locate her missing partner. Tonight, it’s 1:04 a.m. and Caitlyn has checked all of Vi’s typical haunts. She asks each bartender if Vi—they all know the name and face of their most loyal regular—is anywhere inside. No luck. She then heads over to Ekko’s place and knocks as loudly as she can on the door.
It takes a few seconds and a cacophony of grumbled words and footsteps from the other side, but eventually the door opens.
“Who the hell’s here at—” Ekko’s voice is still rough with sleep. His eyes widen in recognition, then narrow in suspicion. “Oh. It’s you.”
Caitlyn clears her throat. She isn’t wearing her enforcer outfit, because she knows most people in the undercity will be less likely to give information to someone in uniform. Plus, it helps her to blend in. Ekko, however, recognizes her face in an instant. “Hello, Ekko. I’m very sorry to disturb you at such an inopportune time, and I know we don’t always see eye to eye—”
Ekko raises an eyebrow. His face is still pinched in irritation and he looks like he wants to say something, but his expression changes entirely when Caitlyn finishes her sentence.
“—But it’s about Vi.”
Whatever he wants to say, he swallows it down and sighs. “What about her? Is she alright?” Caitlyn can hear the concern in his voice.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” She hesitates. “You know how she sometimes spends the night with her friends down here. I was just wondering if you’d seen her tonight.”
Ekko shakes his head. “Nope. Not a whisper.” He cocks his head. “Did she tell you where she was headed?”
Caitlyn sighs. “No. We got into a little fight this morning, you see, and she said she was going to the Last Drop for the day. But, as you can see, it’s the middle of the night and she’s still not home.” Caitlyn cringes at her own word choice. The fight in question wasn’t really a little fight at all; it was just shy of a full-on shouting match, possibly the worst argument they’ve ever had. This type of avoidance is expected, but that doesn’t mean Caitlyn isn’t nervous.
“Have you checked—”
“Yes, Ekko. I’ve checked all the bars in Zaun.”
Ekko nods, seeming to appreciate her usage of the city’s proper name. “I’ll tell you if I hear anything. You should keep a closer eye on her.” The words leave no room for debate, but there’s surprisingly little contempt in his voice. He really does just seem worried.
“I try to. But she’s her own person. I can’t control where she decides to go. Not Vi, of all people.” Caitlyn chuckles fondly.
The ghost of a smile visits Ekko’s face. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Just take care of her, okay?”
“Always.”
It’s two in the morning and Caitlyn has exhausted all possible locations that her sleep-deprived mind can conjure up. Defeated, she heads back to the mansion, a churning uneasiness growing in her gut. She lays awake for an eternity in her room, thoughts racing in her mind of Vi. Vi, concussed and bleeding in an alley from a bad bar fight. Vi, drunkenly falling into the river Pilt and drowning.
When she finally falls asleep, she dreams of Vi. She dreams of a search party, of flashlights zeroing in on Vi’s figure. Light haloes a horrifically mutilated corpse, a shimmer-veined, distorted, decaying carcass that used to be her lover.
Her lover, who Caitlyn had failed to save.
When Caitlyn wakes up, she dry heaves over the side of her bed. Nothing comes out but spit and the sour taste of dread.
The second day Vi doesn’t come home, she laces up her shoes, puts on her uniform, and descends the stairs of the manor, fully intending to march down to the precinct and file a report for a missing person. Before she can make it out the door she is stopped in her tracks by her father, who comes rushing over to her, pale-faced.
“Caitlyn, we need to talk to you. Right now.”
“What’s happened?” Dread creeps up Caitlyn’s spine.
“We’ve received a note in the mail.”
Caitlyn sits, hands fidgeting. She taps her foot on the floor in time with the tick, tock of the clock on the wall. Something is wrong. She can tell by the looks on her parents’ faces as the three of them sit at the table. They shoot occasional hesitant glances Caitlyn’s way, as if they’re trying to figure out how to tell her that her childhood doberman had just passed.
Caitlyn hates it. She hates this.
Something is horribly wrong. And as much as she tries to avoid it, she knows it’s about Vi.
Her mother clears her throat. “Someone is asking for ten million.” Her eyes flick to Caitlyn for a fraction of a second, and she pulls out a piece of paper, setting it on the table wordlessly. “In exchange for Vi.”
Caitlyn can’t breathe. Everything feels remote, like she’s watching her own life through a screen, or a dream. Gods, she wants this to be a dream. She stands up from her chair and snatches the note from the table. Her throat constricts as she reads.
Dear Caitlyn Kiramman,
Listen closely. By now you have most likely noticed one of your loved ones is nowhere to be found. We have her in our possession. She is alive, and she will stay that way as long as you follow our instructions.
Withdraw ten million in golden hexes from the bank and walk, alone and unarmed, to the corner of 13th and Cascade at exactly 10 tonight.
Do not contact the rest of the enforcers or tell any of your rich, powerful friends about this. We will know, and she will suffer for it.
Don’t get cocky, Kiramman. Her life is in your hands.
She flips the paper over. Attached to the back is a picture of Vi, unconscious and in chains. Her face is bruised, and she looks utterly helpless. Caitlyn feels a surge of fury and utter disgust, not directed at Vi but at whatever miserable creature did this to the woman she loves.
She wants badly to destroy them. To march down and rip their throat out with her bare hands for daring to lay a malicious finger on her wonderful, caring, loving partner, who plays with orphans and protects the helpless and brings her flowers just because she feels like it. But she must think of Vi’s safety here, and what will be best for her.
“We have to pay it,” Caitlyn decides.
Her mother sighs somberly. Her father just looks exhausted. “Yes,” she says. “I think that would be the best course of action.”
The first thing Vi registers as the world comes into focus again is that her head hurts. A lot. The second is—cold.
The cold stone pressed against her back, the cold air of the musky, damp room. The cold of the metal cuffs that bite into her wrists as she tugs her arms forward, the chain linking her to the wall. For a second, she can’t breathe, because she’s completely certain she’s somehow back in Stillwater. Then she notices the atmosphere and look of the room is completely different from what she remembers in that shithole, and a portion of her panic is gone, replaced with confusion and disorientation.
Where the hell is she?
It’s not important. What is important is figuring out how to get the hell out of here. Which unfortunately seems impossible in her current situation.
She tugs once more at the cuffs linking her to the wall. She winces, because they’re closed tight around her wrists. Like, really tight. As much as she squirms and writhes, she just can’t seem to get any closer to freedom. Vi knows when to back out of a fight. And these cuffs are not gonna back down, so she reluctantly concedes defeat. For now.
Instead, she decides to gather what she can of the situation.
She had been drinking yesterday, which is why her memory is so hazy. She was leaving the bar at around sunset, walking down towards Piltover, when suddenly she felt a flash of pain—and that’s when everything goes dark in her mind. If she tries really hard, though, she thinks she can see a masked figure in her mind’s eye, standing over her, right after the pain erupted. It may be a trick of her brain, though.
Speaking of pain—she’s in a lot of it. Her muscles are sore, and her head is pounding. Her lip is busted, and dried blood is caked on her chin. Her body is damp with dried sweat. She groans in discomfort.
Just then, movement outside the door to her tiny room. A lock slides open and in walks a man with a pistol on his hip, carrying a bowl of gruel and a spoon.
“You’re awake,” he greeted. “Eat up.” He tosses both in her general direction.
Vi keeps her eyes on him. “Who the fuck are you?” Her words are quiet and, despite her best efforts, a little shaky.
“Nobody you need to know about,” he answers vaguely and turns to leave.
“I think I wanna know about the guy who’s got me chained up and eating slop.” He pauses mid-way through the door frame. “First off, why do you have me chained up and eating slop? Did I commit a crime I’m not aware of?” She drawls sarcastically.
He looks back at her. “It’s for money. I’ve got nothin’ against you, I’m just following orders. You’ll be fine; as long as that girl follows through.”
That girl?
Before she can inquire further. He steps out of the room and closes the door.
Vi closes her eyes. God damn it. If she hadn’t stormed off on Caitlyn like that…
Caitlyn.
Gods, it’s Caitlyn she worries for more than herself. Knowing her, she’ll probably come in and try to break Vi free from wherever the fuck she is. If Caitlyn finds out where Vi is located, there’ll be no stopping her from unleashing hell on the people keeping her here, without even a lick of regard for her own safety.
She hopes Caitlyn never comes for her. She’s not even worth it, not with the way she acted yesterday. This is her own fault. She ran away and got so drunk she could barely stand, then fell right into the arms of some deranged kidnapper. She has to get out of this herself.
But she just can’t figure out how.
Suddenly, another noise from outside. She looks up as the lock on her door is undone, and a new figure steps in. It’s a man, taller than the other guy, face a lot more scowly.
“What do you want? Gonna tell me why I’m here?”
No response.
“You shy, big guy?”
He stomps toward her and kicks her in the face.
She barks in shock, clutching her bruised cheek with a manacled hand. “What the fuck, man?”
“That was for talking out of line,” he spits in a deep, Piltovan accent. “And these,” he grins, “are for the pictures.”
He kicks her face again. She can only gasp in pain as she doubles over and he kicks her once, twice more in the side, then once more in the head for good measure. She chokes and spits a glob of blood onto the cold, hard floor, breath heaving and heart pounding.
Her ribs ache, her head hurts, and she’s dribbling blood all onto the floor. But she’s felt worse. In a sick way, this type of beating is almost familiarly natural. Like coming home—to a wretched, twisted lover. To the place where she belongs.
“Let’s hope your girl gets here soon.”
Vi’s bowl of gruel goes untouched.
Briefcase in hand, Caitlyn walks down the streets of Zaun in a daze. The tightness in her chest grows as she gets closer and closer to her destination. She’s almost there now. The spot where she will give away a fortune from her family’s estate in order to get Vi back.
She doesn’t care about the money. She couldn’t care less about anything other than Vi’s safety.
Surprisingly, this is the first time in her life that her family has been extorted for money. One would think that, considering their frankly disgusting amount of wealth, they would be a target of this sort of thing more often. But the Kiramman manor is well-protected.
Zaun, however, is not.
Caitlyn holds her breath as she sees the corner she’s meant to meet her extorters at come into view. She checks her watch. 9:54. She clutches the briefcase to her chest, pushing aside the doubts and anxieties that rise up in her stress-addled mind. She has to do this, and she has no choice. She lost that choice the second Vi landed in the hands of these people.
A few lone commuters eye her briefcase as she leans back against the wall of a nearby building, scanning the crowd. After a few minutes of antsy waiting, she spots a masked figure, who seems to have spotted her first.
The person in the mask heads toward her, wearing a sage green jacket, any recognizable features obscured. The person seems to be about her height, maybe a tad shorter.
“Kiramman.” He nods as he walks up to her. She swallows the surge of revulsion and nods back. “Follow me.”
The man takes Caitlyn into an alley. She follows cautiously, scanning her surroundings for danger and keeping her eyes glued to the masked man for any sudden movements. She feels exposed and vulnerable, unarmed as she is. “The money,” she says, fighting to keep her voice even. The man holds his hands out and Caitlyn places the suitcase in them. He opens it just slightly, peers in and takes a good look at the golden hexes inside.
“Yeah, this’ll do.” He shuts the case. “I’ll get her back to—”
“Freeze! We have you surrounded!”
Caitlyn and the man both jump. Caitlyn’s stomach drops because, on both sides of the alley, they are flanked by two pairs of enforcers, all pointing rifles at the masked man.
“Shit!” He growls. “You fucking set me up!”
The enforcers are closing in. “You’re under arrest for assault and kidnapping.”
Caitlyn is panicking now. How could this have happened? Did her parents tip off the enforcers? Did someone witness this man assaulting Vi and report him?
“Drop the briefcase and come out with your hands up! This is your last warning!” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She backs away slowly from the masked man, putting her hands up.
“You bitch,” he spits at her before making a run for it. He sprints towards the enforcers blocking his way and pulls out a gun. He uses the case to block a few gunshots—which somehow works—and fires three quick shots, the first missing both enforcers and the second hitting the left officer in the chest. She collapses in a pool of blood. The enforcer on the right grabs him and wrestles him to the ground as he tries to run past, causing him to drop the briefcase, and it spills open in a sea of gold hexes.
The enforcer is on top of him now, and the two officers on the other side are running past her to catch up with the masked man. He fires a shot at the enforcer on top of him, and a spray of red and gray matter erupts from his skull before he falls to the ground. He gets to his feet, fires a shot at Caitlyn and misses, but by now the enforcers are ahead of her. One of them is scrounging around on the ground for the spilled hexes, and the other is running after the masked man.
Caitlyn grabs the rifle of the newly dead enforcer. It’s not her family’s custom-made model, but it will do.
She takes up pursuit of the masked man behind the other enforcer, who is currently firing shots at his quick and nimble figure. He turns around and fires three shots, all of which miss—one grazes Caitlyn’s hair, good Gods—and then fires one final shot which hits the enforcer’s leg. He collapses to the floor and wails in agony, clutching his wound.
Caitlyn has no time to help him. He’ll recover. Vi will not, if the masked man reaches his destination.
Caitlyn sprints after him, winding past groups of Piltovans and crashing into walls, panting as she struggles to keep pace with the man. He’s fast, weaving around corners haphazardly, but the adrenaline keeps Caitlyn moving. He turns back to fire two shots at Caitlyn. She barely has time to duck out of the way.
She could fire back. It would be easy, and there’s no doubt that she could have him bleeding out in a puddle with a few well-aimed shots. But she needs to follow him. Needs to see where his base of operations is—hopefully, where he’s keeping Vi.
He rounds a corner. Caitlyn follows him, and she sees him fiddling with the lock of a door to a small, dingy building. This must be it.
As he’s scrounging around in his pocket for a key, Caitlyn raises her rifle and shoots him right in the side of the head. He collapses instantly. A few bystanders gasp in shock, then clear out of the area upon seeing the carnage.
Panting, she turns over his broken body and empties his pockets. She pulls out a ring of keys and fits each one to the lock, sighing when she finds the key that slides into the lock with a click.
She grabs her rifle and opens the door.
Immediately upon entering, she sees two people, a man and a woman. The man raises his hands in surrender when she points her weapon at them, but the woman draws her pistol. Both Caitlyn and the woman fire at the same time, and both shots miss. Caitlyn fires another shot and the woman clutches her bleeding stomach, dropping the pistol and falling to the ground with a thump.
“Where is she?” Caitlyn demands, unbridled fury in her voice as she points her rifle directly at the man’s head.
“Down the hall. Second door to the right.” The terror in his voice is hideously satisfying. She wants everyone involved in this to feel the same terror that she felt upon learning that her partner had been kidnapped. The same terror that Vi must have felt, beaten and chained up and extorted for money.
“I should kill you.” She says it with a quiet venom in her voice, and he whimpers. She lowers her rifle and walks down the hallway.
She locates the second door on the right and pulls out the ring of keys, hastily sorting through them, fingers so shaky she almost drops them on the ground, and—
Bang.
Her shoulder explodes in pain.
The brief moment is enough to incapacitate her, and suddenly a hand is around her throat, and her rifle is pulled from her hands.
The hand tightens around her neck. She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. Then she opens her eyes and sees the face of her attacker. It’s not the man who told her where Vi is. It’s someone she’s never seen before. Bearded and gruff, with a look of cruel, sadistic pleasure in his eyes.
He laughs almost maniacally. “You little wretch.”
The gunshots had started all of a minute ago, and now the sounds have dissolved into chaos. Vi strains closer to the door to hear. Shouting, banging, choking, and a woman’s scream. A familiar scream.
Oh, gods. No, no, no. Why her? Why?
“Open that door!” Vi yells, desperation coating every syllable, making her voice hoarse. “Stop! Don’t hurt her!” She’s nearly crying now. Caitlyn is out there being brutalized and she’s chained to the wall. She pulls on her restraints, metal biting into her skin and drawing blood. She feels so helpless. Helpless to save the ones she loves. She hasn’t felt this helpless since—
A gasp. Caitlyn’s gasp. Then a yell of pain—the voice of the man who had beaten Vi up. A nasty crack, and an awful, agonized noise from Caitlyn.
The door opens, and there she is. There they are.
The Warden—as Vi has taken to calling him in her head—is holding a battered, bruised, and bloody Caitlyn. She’s unconscious, bleeding from her shoulder.
“You stupid motherfucker,” Vi breathes, on the brink of tears. The man tosses her on the floor, which makes Vi wince, and he stares her down. He clearly thinks she was talking to him, when in reality she was talking to Caitlyn.
“That disrespectful mouth of yours pisses me off.” He kicks Caitlyn’s body towards the wall perpendicular to the one behind Vi, and grabs the shackles, fastening them around her wrists. “Your girlfriend misbehaved, so now she gets to join the fun.”
He shuts the door, and now it’s just them.
Vi looks at her girlfriend. Bloody, bruised, helpless. All because of Vi. Vi did this to her.
She puts her head down in her hands and sobs. She doesn’t know how long she cries for, but she goes until her tear ducts have run dry.
“Caitlyn, I’m sorry.” She says, like maybe her voice will carry into Caitlyn’s dreams, make them more peaceful. “I’m sorry I kept running away. I’m sorry I never listen to you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Caitlyn stirs. “Vi,” she croaks, and the love in her voice pierces Vi’s heart like a happy dagger into a sheath.
“Cait…” She can’t say anything else, so she calls Caitlyn’s name. The only thing she knows how to do.
“It’s not your fault.” She opens her eyes, and Vi chokes on another sob. “I love you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
“No.” Vi’s voice breaks. “Don't apologize. Never."
Caitlyn coughs, flecks of blood flying out and dripping down her chin.
“If I’m going to die, I’m glad I’ll be with you in my last moments.” Caitlyn’s face lights up with the ghost of a smile, causing something inside Vi to burn bright and shatter all at once, before the door unlocks and opens.
“I love you.” She needs to say it back, one last time.
The Warden steps in. He locks the door behind him.
He’s carrying a big pack that clinks and rustles as it moves. Vi knows their situation just got a lot fucking worse, but honestly, what did she expect.
“I’ve got a surprise for you two.” He shifts his cruel gaze towards Caitlyn. “Since you felt so inclined to play the hero, I think it’s only fair to mete out some punishment. But you,”—he gestures to Vi—”You didn’t do anything wrong. So I think it’s only fair you’ll be on the other end.”
The other—
“What?” Vi wants to throw up.
He unzips the pack and empties it onto the floor. With a series of deafening clanks and rattles, the instruments spill onto the floor. A wooden bat, metal pipe, silver knife, some matches, a gag, some vials, and a whip are among the objects that clatter to the floor.
“You’re gonna be punishing her. And if you don’t, you’ll never see sunlight again.”
Vi’s stomach clenches and she gasps for air. She suddenly can’t breathe. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.
“No. No, I won’t do it. You’ll have to kill me.”
“Vi!” Caitlyn cries. “Don’t say that.”
“I won’t fucking do it! Just kill me! Shoot me, fucking do whatever. I’m not gonna walk out of here and keep fucking living after doing something like that. After k—killing her—”
“You’ll both live.” Oh, he’s sweetening the deal. “Once you punish her, you’ll both go free. If not, you both die.”
No. Vi crumples to the floor and cries. She cries, while the Warden laughs. Then she pitches over and vomits into her bowl of gruel.
She’s still crying when she hears Caitlyn’s airy voice. “Please, Vi. Just do it.”
“No. He’s lying. He’s—”
“Will you listen to me for once in your goddamn life and just do it!?” Caitlyn practically wails. “Do it! Please, for us. For me!”
For her. For Caitlyn. Vi is about to brutalize her partner. For her partner’s sake.
The Warden undoes her handcuffs. She wants to rip him apart, limb from limb.
He hands her a wooden bat and she takes it with shaky, sweaty hands. He backs up and pulls out his pistol, keeping it trained on Vi the entire time.
“Hit her.”
Robotically, Vi walks over to her partner, hands clutching the bat. There’s no fear in her eyes as she looks up at Vi. Only sadness, and trust. She knows this will hurt them both. She trusts Vi to hurt her. She’s asking Vi to hurt her. She’s asking to take this pain from Vi’s hands.
Vi looks down into Caitlyn’s eyes, tries to convey all the love in her heart through her gaze. But she just ends up with tears blurring her vision, muddying those beautiful, ocean-blue eyes from view.
“Please don’t cry.” Caitlyn’s voice is so soft, Vi thinks maybe she’s the only one who heard. “It’s okay. Hurt me.”
Vi can never deny Caitlyn anything. Can’t disobey her for the world.
She swings. The bat comes down on Caitlyn’s good shoulder.
There’s an awful crack as Vi’s half-hearted swing comes down on Caitlyn’s shoulder. Caitlyn makes no noise, but pitches forward and winces in clear pain.
For a second, Vi thinks she’s going to throw up.
“Again. With power this time.”
Vi tries to convince herself that this is all a dream. That none of this is real, that it’s an awful nightmare and in order to wake up she has to turn into a monster so hideous, it will scare the demons away.
She whimpers and brings the bat down again.
Crack.
It’s harder. Caitlyn doesn’t groan in agony, but she stifles a gasp and clutches at her shoulder. Vi can’t see her expression, but she’d bet it’s pinched with pain.
Vi can tell she’s downplaying her reactions in order to spare her feelings, but she’d also bet that the Warden was looking for screams and wails of pain, that he’d consider a whimpering, howling Caitlyn a job well done.
Vi nudges Caitlyn with her foot and tries not to break down at her pained, watery expression. She subtly shakes her head and flicks her gaze in the Warden’s direction. She can only hope that Caitlyn gets the message.
“More. Hit her again.” The gun is still trained on her.
Vi swings the bat down and Caitlyn crumples into a curled position, groaning. God, it hurts so fucking bad. She wants to scream in agony. Wants to take Caitlyn’s place as the abused, tormented victim. She’d do fucking anything to take Caitlyn’s place. Nothing could be worse than this. Than what she’s become.
But that’s just what Vi is, right? Someone who stands back and watches, helpless and powerless, as the people she loves are made to suffer. Only this time, she’s the one carrying out the torment. And it’s almost fitting. The price of being loved by Vi is a short life that ends in misery.
After she lost her sister, Vi had wondered if there was some sort of demon that had cursed her so that all her loved ones would die in front of her eyes. Now Vi knows. There is no demon. Vi is the demon.
She swings the bat down at Caitlyn’s ribs. And again.
Crack. Crack. Caitlyn sobs when the bat makes impact.
She wants to set the bat down and let the Warden free her from this misery. Free them both. For a second she even considers it. Then Caitlyn looks at her.
The love in her eyes. It extinguishes everything. And despite it all, Caitlyn smiles. She smiles. Even after being beaten and battered, she has more trust in the woman currently brutalizing her than fear over the nightmare they’re in. And all at once she knows what she has to do. Caitlyn is strength incarnate. She is everything Vi admires, everything she aspires to. She is the light in the morning sunrise, the slow bloom of spring. She is hope in the midst of the blinding darkness. Vi has to mirror her strength—to be strong enough to hurt her, just as Caitlyn is strong enough to endure her hurt. She has to accept the burden of giving Caitlyn this hurt. Because Vi is the only one who Caitlyn trusts to give it to her.
Vi brings the bat down onto her back. Crack. Caitlyn whimpers.
She closes her eyes and tries to breathe. She can’t show weakness. Can’t cry, can’t let her despair show on the outside.
“Nice job. I wasn’t sure you had it in you,” the Warden’s ugly, smarmy voice sounds from the other side of the room. Vi drops the bat.
“You’re not done yet. Come here.”
Vi trudges over emptily. He holds out a cigarette and some matches. “Here. You deserve a break.” The depravity in his eyes betrays a more sinister intention underneath this little proposal, but it’s not like she has a choice with his gun still trained on her.
Vi takes the cigarette and grabs a match out of the box. She strikes the match and lights up the cigarette. She takes a long, deep drag and lets the smoke seep out of her lungs. She coughs lightly—it’s been a while.
The relief is short-lived and barely palpable. Every drag she takes brings less and less reprieve, only serving to bring her closer to her next, hideous task.
“You do this a lot.”
Vi comes out of her daze. She looks at him, taking another drag. She just stares at him. She won’t justify that question phrased as a statement with any kind of response.
“You’re real good at beating people up. Maybe you could help me out with future jobs.” He chuckles mirthlessly.
Vi wants to take her burning stub and stick it directly in one of his hideous eyes. Instead, she says—emphasizing each word carefully—“Fuck you.”
“I know who you are, Vi.” Her name in his mouth is repulsive, and she has to suppress a shudder. It’s the opposite of hearing her name in Caitlyn’s melodious, gentle voice. He says her name the way a hunter would invoke the name of the abominable monster they had subdued and captured—Vi is a prize to be won, a beast to be hunted.
Vi recalls one hazy night in her adolescence when she, Claggor, and Mylo stumbled upon a dog fighting ring. The handlers had bred and raised these dogs to rip each other to shreds. It was quite a gruesome sight, and it had made Vi wonder how one could survive such a sad, miserable existence.
Now she knows. Whether she’s being cheered on in the pits or sharpened into a living weapon against her own partner, Vi is a dog to be owned, a hound to be sicced against others for sport.
And the only way to survive is to abandon all hope.
She takes one last drag from her smoldering cigarette and looks at Caitlyn. Her bruised, bloody face is pensive and tired as she looks at Vi. Sweaty locks of hair stick to her forehead. She looks defeated—an expression she can barely remember ever seeing on her face. Her heart clenches in shameful sympathy.
“You know what to do.” The Warden grins disgustingly.
Vi trudges over to her partner lifelessly. She must be strong for Caitlyn. She must be as strong as Caitlyn.
Caitlyn screws her eyes shut and bears her throat for Vi just so slightly. Vi takes the hot cigarette and presses the scorching end right onto Caitlyn’s neck.
Caitlyn winces and sucks in a labored breath, tongue pinched between her gapped teeth. Her eyebrows scrunch together in pain. Vi wills away the sting of tears threatening her eyes, the absolute disgust at herself.
“You take it too well.” He scoffs in Caitlyn’s direction. “I almost hoped you would fight back.”
Vi removes the cigarette butt from her neck; she sighs lightly in relief, and so does Vi. “I’m too weak,” Caitlyn says, and lets out a little cough for emphasis. Caitlyn had never been the best at selling herself.
“Catch.” Vi barely has time to swivel around before she’s catching a little vial in her hands, the cigarette butt falling unceremoniously to the floor. She examines the little container, feeling nauseous.
“Look inside,” the Warden instructs.
Vi unscrews the top and chokes on her own spit.
It’s acid.
“No.”
The warden cocks his gun. “Yes.”
“No.” She sounds almost like a little kid now, a child begging for her family not to be taken from her, not to be hurt.
“Vi, please.” Caitlyn reaches up and tugs at her sleeve, desperation in her voice. She mouths something. I love you. Vi has seen Caitlyn’s mouth form the words so many times, she no longer needs any sound to understand. She reaches down and squeezes her lover’s hand tight. I love you too.
Vi should be the one in Caitlyn’s place. She’s been kicked around and abused enough in her life. What are a few sweet blows from those hands she knows and loves so deeply, compared to the cold, hard grip of the world?
If she does this, Caitlyn could be maimed for life. She could forever bear the scars of this harrowing day, all over her body. Even if she someday moves on from Vi, she will have to live her whole existence marred by Vi’s hands. She’ll look in the mirror and know that she had had a part of herself taken by a woman she had once loved. If she does this, Vi can see no future where Caitlyn wants anything to do with her.
But if she doesn’t do it, Caitlyn won’t have a future at all.
Vi leans down and holds the vial up, then immediately starts crying. The tears fall one after another, and through the hot blur she can barely see Caitlyn reach out to put a hand on her shoulder.
From somewhere she can’t see, the gun cocks again.
“I love you, Vi. Nothing will change that.” It’s so quiet, even Vi can barely hear it.
Caitlyn loves her. Caitlyn loves her when they’re arguing. Caitlyn loves her when she’s on a bender, when she doesn’t come home, when she gives some poor fucker a black eye and lands herself in jail. It was Caitlyn’s incandescent, unwavering, merciless love for Vi that drove her to this situation in the first place.
Vi is the reason Caitlyn is in this mess in the first place. And now, Vi must be the one to save her.
Hand quivering, she tips the acid vial onto Caitlyn’s shoulder.
Caitlyn screams.
The acid hisses through her clothes, the skin underneath bubbling and corroding to form a horrible red slosh of burning flesh, and Vi wails.
The vial drops from her hands.
The Warden cackles from across the room. He strides towards Vi and Caitlyn, standing over them. “I knew you couldn’t do it. Guess you’re just a little pussy after all. Big, bad Vi. Champion of the ring. The new hound of Zaun. A maiming machine, they say. You’re just like your daddy. All that talk, but underneath it all, you’re a sad, worthless little—”
All of a sudden, seven different things happen in quick succession.
First, Caitlyn kicks out a leg underneath the Warden, cutting his legs out from under him.
Second, he wobbles, yells, “Shit!” and pulls his gun from its holster.
Third, Vi swipes the vial from the floor with staggering speed and throws the remaining acid into the Warden’s face.
Fourth, the Warden, screaming, frantically fires a shot that misses Vi’s head by a hair’s breadth.
Fifth, Vi jumps on him like a rabid animal, grabbing his gun and trying to wrestle it out of his hand.
Sixth, he fires three more shots, completely missing his target, still blinded by the acid.
Seventh, the gun clicks hollowly.
It’s empty.
The brief moment he takes to register his situation is enough for Vi to land a strong, unfettered punch on his face. It lands with a loud, satisfying crack. She barely even feels it when the sting of the acid bites into her knuckles.
“Shit!” he spits through a mouthful of blood, dropping the useless gun and reaching up pathetically to try and fight back. But Vi is a maiming machine, a hound with the scent of blood. His feeble resistance is for nothing.
Vi beats him again, putting all the force and fury she possibly can into it. He gasps and chokes as she lands, one, two, three more. He coughs wetly and spits out a tooth, choking on his own blood.
Vi hits him again. Again. Again. All the while he gasps and writhes and groans over the grotesque sound of acid bubbling, eating away at his face.
He’s crying now, barely conscious. “Stop…” he lisps, voice hollow and fragmented. “Stop, I’ll…”
She takes both her fists and slams them into his face, putting an end to whatever fruitless plea was on his lips. She beats him again, again, again. There’s barely any part of his face that’s not covered in blood except for the tear tracks running down his cheeks. His whole head is a gooey pulp of melted gore. He looks more like a corpse than a living human.
He’s shut up now. No sound comes from his throat as Vi loses track of just how many crushing blows she’s landed on his mutilated face. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t see anything past the blurry red fog clouding her mind. Not until she hears her.
“Vi!”
Vi gasps. She looks down at her hands, knuckles drenched in blood, aching from the sheer force and number of the hits she landed.
She stands up and looks over at her partner, trembling, breath heaving. “Vi, he’s dead.” Caitlyn’s voice wobbles like she’s about to cry from relief.
Caitlyn is disheveled. She looks pained and sweaty and strained, covered in blood and burns and bruises.
She looks beautiful.
Vi falls to her knees and embraces her.
“Oh, Cait, Cait, I’m sorry,” she babbles into Caitlyn’s neck, blackened with the burn mark from her cigarette. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so—”
“Shh.” Caitlyn shushes her definitively and pulls them apart ever so slightly. She brings Vi’s hand to her lips and kisses her raw, blood-soaked knuckles. “You did it, Vi. We did it.”
Vi sobs, the weight of everything suddenly too much to bear. Caitlyn kisses her forehead gently, so gently, and breathes, “We need to get out of here now.”
Vi sniffles and nods, searching the Warden’s corpse and retrieving his keys, then kneels and unlocks Caitlyn’s shackles.
Caitlyn slowly pushes herself to her feet, standing on unsteady legs. Vi props her up as they limp out the door to their prison. Vi prays to any gods listening that they won’t run into trouble on their way out of this place.
They trudge as fast as they can towards the exit; mercifully they reach the door without seeing another living soul and tumble out into the outside world. Vi looks around for the nearest bystander and yells, “Help! We need help!”
All of the nearby Zaunites stare with wide eyes at the bloody, battered pair.
When Caitlyn awakens, she does so with the strange sensation of having been asleep for days. Her eyes slowly crack open, full of sleep.
This isn’t a tiny, dingy cell; it’s her childhood bedroom. She stares up at her ornate ceiling in wonderment. The ceiling stares back. Her arm is in a sling and there are bandages littering her face and legs. She tries to move her muscles, stretch out, but she finds that every attempted move is accompanied by a sharp sting.
“Oh, you’re awake, dear.” That voice—
Caitlyn manages to twist her head enough to look him in the eyes.
“Father.” Her voice breaks.
“Caitlyn.” He reaches out a hand to lightly caress her shoulder. “My dear. We were so, so worried.” Caitlyn tries to sit up and embrace her father, but she finds that every joint in her body is incredibly sore, and exerting any kind of force makes Caitlyn’s whole body smart in protest. She winces. “No, no, my dear. Don’t push yourself, Caitlyn. You’re very hurt—you dislocated your shoulder, and we had to set it—it may be painful to move for a little while.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Just over twenty-four hours.”
Caitlyn closes her eyes and thinks. Her memory between now and the moment she exited that cell is hazy at best. She can recall a dingy street, some flashing lights, some faceless pedestrians, Vi’s arm holding her weight—
Vi.
“Vi. Where is she?” Caitlyn feels a twinge of anxiety, suddenly growing restless. “She’s safe, right?”
Her father smiles wanly. “Yes, Vi is safe. She is staying in a guest room currently, but she instructed me to remain here and not move an inch until you awoke. It’s odd of her to behave this way. Typically, she’d be…” His brow furrows, and he breaks eye contact with Caitlyn, shaking his head. “Oh, well.”
Caitlyn does her best to keep those memories away, but they encroach on her mind like a wall of darkness. “She… How is she?”
“She is physically sound,” her father says, “but she seems… unwell. I don’t know what happened to you two, and I won’t ask unless you feel ready to tell me. But I worry for her as well. She’s not herself—she hasn’t even come to visit you.”
So—Vi is avoiding her again. They’re officially back to square one, and Caitlyn knows exactly why. Her stomach churns. Her eyes burn with the unwelcome intrusion of the memory of Vi’s tear-stained face, her wail of agony, the pain in her eyes, following that man’s cruel demands.
She can’t think about that now. She can’t. It’s too much. So she thinks about Vi instead.
There are so many things she wants to say to her partner. I love you. It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have shouted at you that morning. I’m still madly in love with you. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. You’re the gentlest person I’ve ever known, even when you’re—
Caitlyn sighs and reaches up to run a hand through her hair, but—
“Ack!”
“Here, my dear.” Her father pulls out a medicine bottle and pours a tablet into his hand, taking a glass of water from the bedside table and handing both to her. She gulps them down without question. “What was that?”
“Painkillers. Strong ones. They will help with the discomfort.”
“Thank you, father.”
He smiles warmly. “Of course. Now, get some rest. Your body needs to heal.”
“I’m not even tired…” is the last thing she can remember muttering before sleep whisks her away.
When she wakes up, her father is gone, replaced by the concerned visage of her mother. She finds that the pain from before is more or less gone, and she immediately surges up to wrap her in a one-handed hug, limited by her cast. Her mother squeezes her tight.
“Oh, my dear. My dear Caitlyn. We were so, so, worried—” A shaky breath as Caitlyn pats her back lovingly. “How are you feeling?”
Caitlyn gives her the full rundown. After mother and daughter have caught up fully and exchanged many a tearful embrace, her mother leaves her to take care of her personal hygiene. She finds she can now stand with minimal pain, albeit shakily, so she goes to the bathroom, takes a quick bath, brushes her teeth and hair, and downs the whole glass of water left on her bedside table, along with the crackers and soup her mother left for her. It’s delicious, and she’s surprised by her own appetite. After she’s done with everything, she sighs and sets out to find Vi.
Vi lies on her side, staring at the empty wall of the guest room. She counted one thousand, two hundred and eighty two ticks from the grandfather clock in the corner, then lost count and started again, counting six hundred and five before losing count once again.
Knock knock, knock knock.
That’s Cassandra’s knock.
“Come in.” Vi’s voice is flat, hollow, and without affect. The door creaks open and the woman steps in.
“Caitlyn has woken up.”
Vi doesn’t look away from the wall, but she closes her eyes and sighs heavily. “Good. That’s really good. Amazing, actually.” Her voice is still stiff and monotone. She really is relieved, but she doesn’t sound it.
“Would you like to see her?”
Vi watches the wall for a few empty moments, then coughs. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll uh, be there in just a minute.”
There’s a pause, like Cassandra is struggling to find words, then she simply says, “Take care, dear,” and the sound of the door shutting echoes throughout the room.
She keeps staring at the wall. She can’t sleep, but maybe if she zones out enough, she’ll never think again. Never remember again.
Vi keeps staring at that wall for minutes or hours. Counting the ticks. Blinking. Breathing.
Then the door opens.
“Tobias?” She says when no voice greets her after a long moment.
“It’s me.”
Vi shuts her eyes tight. She hasn’t cried since Caitlyn got back home and she can’t now. She can’t do this right now. She can’t face Caitlyn. Vi has no idea what Caitlyn will say to her, what a conversation with her partner right now will entail. She feels almost more terrified at the idea of Caitlyn begging her to stay than at the idea of her spitting in Vi’s face and telling her she’s dead to her.
“I can’t do this right now.” It’s so quiet, it’s almost a whisper. But Caitlyn hears. She understands. Of course she does.
Vi can hear Caitlyn’s feet pad against the carpet, inching closer. “You can and you will. Look at me, Vi.”
Vi can never deny Caitlyn anything. Can’t disobey her for the world.
She sits up and looks at her partner.
She’s beautiful bruised and pensive and covered in stitches, just as she’s beautiful clean and joyful and covered in Vi’s kisses. Her beauty defeats everything, the pain and the cruelty and the ugliness of the world.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
Her arm is still in that sling. The sling that Vi put her in. Looking at it makes a shameful sickness rise up in her gut. Vi sits up on the edge of the bed. “I did this.”
“No, my love.” Caitlyn rushes over and takes Vi’s face in her palms. “He did this. If it weren’t for you, we’d both be dead. You were so strong.” Caitlyn presses their foreheads together, and a tear trickles down her partner’s bruised face. She wraps her good arm around Vi and strokes her back, so softly, so tenderly. Vi had given Caitlyn pain and brutality, and in return Caitlyn gives her a gentleness so volatile, so ephemeral that it could only have been conjured from the depths of affection.
She pulls back to stare into Vi’s eyes, hand on her cheek. A loud voice in Vi’s head tells her to run, to push Caitlyn away, to disappear and abandon the life she knows now. But her hand moves on its own to stroke gently at Caitlyn’s forearm. The least she can do after all she put Caitlyn through is to offer her some comfort when she clearly needs it.
“And listen to me. If I was in your position…” Caitlyn’s voice breaks. “Vi, I don’t think I could have done it. I couldn’t have—have saved us.”
Vi ducks away from her. “What, so it makes me a hero that I was so good at—at fucking hurting you?” She can’t stop her voice from trembling. She’s barely holding the tears in.
Look at her. Caitlyn’s the one who suffered a beating and third degree burns on a dislocated shoulder, and Vi’s currently pouting and making Caitlyn comfort her.
Caitlyn tilts Vi's head back up with a gentle nudge of her hand. “No. I know how much it hurt you. I know it must have been even more painful for you than for me.” Caitlyn is right, Vi thinks. Vi has taken beating after beating, been punched, kicked, stabbed, fallen asleep hungry and shivering. And she’d bear it all a hundred times over before she lays a finger on Caitlyn ever again.
And the nightmares.
“I keep having these dreams, whenever I try to sleep.” Vi lets out a shaky breath. “Where it’s like I can’t control my body. I’m amped up on shimmer or something, like I’ve just become this bloodthirsty beast. And I’m standing over you, and you’re begging me not to hurt you, but it’s like I’ve got this insatiable need to kill, kill, kill, and the crowd is chanting, kill, kill, kill, and I don’t want to hurt you but there’s something inside me, something rotten inside me that needs to kill. Needs to hurt.”
Caitlyn closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She sits down next to Vi. “That isn’t you. You know that isn’t you, right, Vi? That’s your brain manifesting its guilt over what happened. You’re… afraid of yourself, it sounds like. But I’ve never been afraid of you, Violet. Not even when you—not even then.”
Vi says nothing. She cries, because she knows she can.
Caitlyn reaches up to wipe her tears away, an easy touch of skin on skin. “You’re good, Vi. You’re so, so good.”
If Caitlyn believes it, even after all that happened, maybe it could be true. “Nothing like this is ever gonna happen again,” Vi declares.
Caitlyn kisses her cheek, a feather-light, tentative press of lips on skin. “I know. But if you want that to be true, you have to stay with me. You have to talk to me when you’re upset, take care of yourself when you’re troubled and stressed. You can’t just make yourself as small as possible and think that’s how to love.”
“You’re so damn bossy.” Vi snorts. “And scarily perceptive.”
“And you’re stubborn and uncompromising.” Caitlyn smiles. Vi smiles too, despite herself.
Caitlyn grabs her hand, squeezing tight. When Caitlyn touches her like this, she so often feels undeserving of it all. Maybe that’s why she always tries to run away. All of the anger and the regret she feels—she can’t let those shameful, destructive feelings show around others. She can’t let anyone else shoulder the burden of a broken woman. So she hides, and leaves herself to stew in her own misery. After seven years with no support system, she’s still learning how to lean on others, to treat her emotions not as an affliction but as just that—feelings. To let herself be important in others’ lives, not just for what she gives to those she loves—be it protection, guardianship, guidance—but for her weaknesses, vulnerabilities, struggles, and for what others can give to her. She knows intimately what it feels like to be a lover, but she’s still getting used to letting herself be beloved.
“I love you.” It’s the only thing to say. The only thing there is.
“I love you so much. No more running away, okay?” Caitlyn smiles wetly and kisses her forehead.
And Vi understands now. Every time she’s inadvertently hurt someone she loved, it was because she ran away. She ran away from her sister in that burning wreckage. She ran away from Ekko when he needed someone to care for him in the absence of the man who raised him. She ran away from Caitlyn under the pouring rain, lifetimes ago, when she had been so convinced that the two of them were irreconcilably different, two worlds that could never combine—and she ran away from Caitlyn after that argument just days prior, throwing her own safety to the wind and endangering both herself and the woman she loved in the process.
The scariest thing she can do is stay. The bravest thing she can do is stay.
“No more of that. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” Vi strokes Caitlyn’s cheek with all the softness she can muster and takes her hand, bringing her knuckles up to kiss. “I’m in this for the long haul, cupcake.”
They stay there, holding each other, and as they embrace, the pain and the sorrow and the ugly memories start to fade—not disappear, but diminish—and in their place bloom new, joyful memories, of a love that time and time again has persisted through the most insurmountable of obstacles.